Limbo

I think my mother nailed it when she said on Tuesday, “4 P.M.: Mets; 7 P.M.: Yankees; 8 P.M.: end of civilization.”

Luckily we seem to have sidestepped that disaster–for now, but it does give pause to think about how fragile the trajectories of our lives can be, how we’re living in a perpetual state of limbo.

This feels true for me on on a personal level, as well. There’s no more fighting the notion that I’ve entered the senior citizen demographic, where obstacles to the body’s ability to maintain optimal function (all the risk factors and things one has to worry about) have seemed to increase exponentially. I’ve emerged relatively unscathed, so far, but many of my friends have had far more serious challenges than I have maintaining their health, mobility, and in some cases, their lives.

As I address my own (relatively minor) challenges of aging with a frenzied oscillation between fretfulness over the inevitable and a can-do attitude on how much weight I can dead-lift to improve my bone density, bigger questions continue to loom on the horizon, especially in these tumultuous times. How long do any of us–even those nowhere near the age for decline–have to lead full and happy lives?

And no matter what their age, how many people’s lives are unfairly upended by loss of a loved one through war or other unnecessary acts of destruction?

Finally, what’s been at the forefront of my mind: how many people’s lives have been compromised through personal harm and separation from their families due to our country’s cruel and inhumane detention policies?

Yesterday, I traveled two hours with a friend to the ICE office in Burlington, MA, which is also being used as a detention center, despite not having adequate facilities–i.e. no showers, minimal food, and one exposed toilet for 40 people captured by video camera. We had just learned that our Congressman, Jim McGovern, whom we’d been urging during a recent meeting, was planning to make an unannounced oversight visit. All previous Congressional visits to Burlington have been pre-arranged, giving ICE time to clean up their act (with one unannounced Congressperson turned away at the door), but a recent court order reaffirmed the right of Congress to conduct oversight inspections without needing to make advance plans.

Photo: D. Dina Friedman

This time, they did let McGovern in. He confirmed that what he saw was a jail. He also had the opportunity to speak to a young man from Honduras–not “the worst of the worst” but someone who had a job, paid taxes, and had no criminal record and an asylum claim in process. This man has now been separated from his wife and two children–ages 12 and 7, with his future in limbo. McGovern’s visit is covered in this short news story. His recount of his observations to the people attending the weekly Wednesday witness in Burlington is here.

I know this post has gone a long way: from annihilation, to aging, to bearing witness, but in all these cases, limbo stays with us, setting us on edge. Being alive right now feels a little like being on the balance board my grandson has. No matter how firmly my feet feel grounded, there’s always that possibility of sudden toppling. And I can only imagine what it’s like for those in the direct “line of fire”: people in war zones, people being targeted by ICE. How to wake up each day and just hope that you can go about your life and things will turn out okay? In the meantime, as long as my aging body holds up, I’m determined to do what I can to not only improve my chances of living well, but those of others, too.