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Featured Illustration: Titus Kaphar
We take human life
For granted
We treat a mother’s child
Like they’re an isolated entity
We see
Through hollow eyes
And empty hearts
As if one teardrop
Doesn’t stain their clothes
Or one death
Doesn’t ripple into more
A life
Wrapped by skin
And blanketed
By her warmth
Effortlessly stripped
And torn from hands
The agony tugging on her heart
Yields a new void
As if
There’s an ample of us
For lives to cease
Because of a war
The colour of skin
Your mother had bestowed
Or the God you pray to
In order to feel at home
Is the reason for a life
For someone’s child
To be no more
Their presence lures over you
With an aching cold
Their skin
Into ashes
But their spirits
Deprived of a home
. . .
We’ve become desensitized to the image of people dying. We’ve grown accustomed to the persistence of racism and inequality in our society. We have created a barrier between us and the rest of the world. People’s identity is forged on the color of their skin, their status, and first impressions. We forget that we are all humans, trying to simply survive the adversities that we are left to deal with. Our mindset ripples into actions that set a domino effect of pain and destruction to not only the person, but their families and their mothers. We relentlessly hurt other people, without thinking about the other person, and the imprint it leaves on their family.
Imagine taking care of a child, devoting your energy to molding a person you hope society will take care of, only to witness their death on television. Imagine the trepidation they feel about something similar happening to them or their recollections of their child now painted in a somber blue.
This is what the loss of a child does to a mother, and creates in society. This is an unspoken truth that echoes across the world.
