Rhoneisms

Sometime shortly before Beatrix was born, Bethany being prescient asked me, “So if there’s a problem during delivery, do you stay with me or go with the kid?”

“What is this? This is like a Cosmo test, right?”

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“I stay with you, of course!”, I answered.

It was the wrong answer.

So when it came to pass that, after a long arduous labor, many attempts to get Beatrix to come out, finally leading to a c-section, and a heart issue was detected within the first few seconds, Beatrix was whisked away by the team of nurses to the NICU and I followed.

She looked like a prizefighter. One that had gone the full 12 rounds and won only by split decision. Her face was puffy and swollen, one eye a bit blackened, her mouth in a resting scowl.

So there we were, just staring at each other, her first 6 hours on this planet were just Beatrix and me (and the occasional nurse to check in) while we waited for various tests to be run. Bethany was not allowed to be in the NICU. Due to the c-section she was not sterile. They wheeled her down from recovery briefly, a couple of hours in, and I was allowed 5 minutes to bring Beatrix out so her mother could hold her for just a bit before being wheeled back.

It sounds so cliche to say that I remember it as if it was yesterday, because it seems like it was. It’s burned into my memory because for that tenuous six hours, unsure really what the heart issue was and what it all meant, I knew I only had one thing to do — look at her. Look at every eyelash surrounding her blue eyes, every tiny wrinkle on her hands and feet, even her sort-of-black eye.

Beatrix was wide awake too. Blue eyes darting all around intensely interested. A look almost of shock but likely wonder as to how it could be that she went from the relative comfort and security of her mother’s womb to… This! Bright lights and beeps and voices and whirring machines. From safety to life. Her heart may not be perfect but she was going to use every bit of it to survive. She was a fighter.

That was 18 years ago today.

And here is Beatrix now. Still rolling with the punches life keeps throwing at her and her peers. Covid and the George Floyd Uprising and now the Siege of her City. Still surviving each and every round. Keeping her guard up but landing plenty good ones herself.

And here her Mother and I are, on the cusp of sending her once again from safety to life. Just as uncertain as to what the future will hold. Only certain that no matter what she’ll take every hit and survive every round and in the end the judges will rule in her favor. She trained her whole life for this. She’s a fighter.

It’s a thought that ran through my head while observing Lucio getting abducted. It went like this, “If there’s 6 ICE guys here detaining this one young man, what are the other 2994 I know are in the city up to at this moment? Where are they? What are they doing?”

The truth is I and the half dozen others that just happened to be there that moment were lucky. We were just in the wrong place at the right time. There were hundreds of detainments going on around the city at that same time that no one was around to film. There have been hundreds daily. For every detainment you do see on social media that happens to be caught on video, there are many, many, more where no observers were around to document.

It’s wonderful that little Liam Ramos was released. Because of the picture seen around the country and the world, pressure was high to right this injustice and a scathing rebuke and order by a judge was actually followed (this time) and Liam is back with his people. That’s terrific.

But what of the other 3800 children (and that’s only the ones accounted for) in similar detention centers? The ones without a photo going viral? What about the others at Liam’s school? The truth is that children are kidnapped and disappeared by these agents every day since this siege began. Most remain in detention. Most US Citizens who were born here. Who is going to fight for them?

But this is not all we don’t see. The woman who was arrested by ICE at gunpoint for peacefully observing and later rescued by the town Sheriff is lucky. There are many peaceful observers and protesters still in custody despite being detained unconstitutionally. But it’s not only them we’re not seeing. Pay close attention to this…

The woman’s husband eventually arrives and tries to intervene, and he made a separate recording of the interaction on his phone. He tells the agents not to search her car because they don’t have a warrant and it would be an illegal search. The agents appear dismissive of his constitutional concerns.

“I’m not getting into the legality of everything,” one agent responds tersely.

What we’re not focussing on is the ignoring of our constitution by federal agents. They do not have the right to search the vehicle (4th amendment) and have no warrant to do so. They are told this and yet do it anyway ( “I’m not getting into the legality of everything”). And what many outside of the city are not understanding is that this is happening hundreds of times a day. Doors are knocked down, peaceful protesters are being attacked, the right to bear arms is being questioned, Miranda rights not granted, etc. We have federal agents willfully ignoring fundamental constitutional rights over and over and over again.

We see the righting of one wrong while failing to see the hundreds and thousands of other ones. We see one kid returned while thousands more remain missing. We see one observer returned or released while hundreds more — US Citizens — remain detained. We see one law abiding neighbor abducted yet thousands more have been disappeared. We see one constitutional right ignored in one instance when it is standard operating procedure for the agents.

So for every video you see, know there are hundreds you haven’t. For every child taken, know there are hundreds more. For every right trampled, know that they plan to ignore them all.

Pay close attention to the things you don’t see.