My Country Feels Like Death
I remember when a friend’s brother died.
I’ll call him Harry.
He was young. My friend was young. I was young-ish.
My brain didn’t know what to do with the information.
Harry was young enough–in his twenties–to have decades ahead of him.
My brain questioned: but he’s not had a life yet–how can he be gone? He hasn’t had a chance to fall in love, to have children, to decide whether to get a dog or a cat with his family yet–so how can he be gone?
The memorial was later that day, and my head spun.
I looked out the window.
Cars were still driving by, going to work, to the grocery store, to drop kids at school.
Dogs on leashes were leading their people by the house. Planes flew overhead.
My brain said, how can the world still be going on? Harry is dead.
Harry not being alive on the planet didn’t make sense to me.
Life continuing on as normal didn’t make sense to me.
AND we just learned as a nation that a father who was strong-armed away from his young family in Maryland because of “an administrative error” by the United States government, isn’t coming back to us.
Apparently our President can’t be bothered.
An “error” had him “Disappeared” into a prison known for torturing its inmates.
Torture.
Do we everyday Americans still remember what torture looks like? What it looked like for the Jewish fathers, mothers, children, during Germany’s time of imprisoning and torturing the target of their hate?
Rape, starvation, hard labor, among other lovely things.
What it has looked like at Guantanamo?
I’ve often wondered if Donald Trump was one of those little boys who pulled the wings off of flies just to watch them suffer. Did he graduate to capturing the neighbor’s cat so he could cut it up to watch it die slowly in agony? His favored sidekick, Musk, was fine to blenderize small, living creatures. So does it seem like a reach to me? Not at all.
If that thought horrifies you, good.
My America has a president who lacks the ability to feel our horror.
To feel any horror at this grievous wrong committed.
No empathy, just casual disregard of a man who is a family’s dad.
We have families. All kinds of families. Dads and moms. Moms and moms. Dads and dads. Single moms. Single dads. Children. Dogs. Cats. Guinea Pigs. Pet mice. Sometimes we are our own family.
The point is, WE IDENTIFY.
We KNOW what it means to lose a partner, a parent, a friend, a child.
We KNOW what it’s like to face the fact that the person who encouraged and supported you and laughed with you and watched dumb movies with you IS GONE.
Are those who voted for Donald Trump reeling like the rest of us are at the “Disappearing” of a DAD from MARYLAND to a Salvadoran prison known for inhumane treatment and torture of its inmates?
Are they as sick as I am knowing America’s own president reacted like “oops somebody else’s bad” and did nothing, and in fact played Ladies That Lunch with the dictator who runs that prison?
America feels like death.
Again I have the sensation of: how is life still going on? How do we manage to go to work, buy groceries, play video games, all as this this casual disposal of a loving dad’s life is OUR OWN PRESIDENT’S position?
Too many Americans–especially the evangelical Christians–bought into his narcissistic love-bombing that he gave a shit about life in-utero, and chose him based on that ONE thing.
Clearly once you’re born no shits are given.
Clearly once you have kids no shits are given.
Clearly if you are gay, trans, brown, Black, no shits are given.
We post-born are disposable to Trump.
Are those who voted for him thinking twice now that Donald Trump has made it clear he wants to be a dictator? That he wants to hold every citizen’s life in his hands, choosing whether or not to casually use then discard them like a poorly-fitting jacket?
Can they see that Trump is bringing the amazing freedom we have worked hard for so we don’t have to be cookie cutter humans to a grinding halt? To do away with the very constitution this country was built on? To make his own rules that supercede the laws made for our safety as a people?
My beloved country–I used to be proud of its open arms, its stance of freedom.
But now it not only looks but smells like death.
And the stench is spreading.
I am still praying for the return of a loving dad to his wife, to his children.
My heart grieves for my country.
My heart grieves for those who are blind to the truths that parade proudly before us.
My heart grieves for the pain of Abrego Garcia and the loss his family faces.
If he isn’t returned, and this is the new normal for our government refusing to protect us,
NONE OF US IS SAFE.
Don’t be fooled.
Grieving, but praying we will all wake up,
julie
https://www.npr.org/2025/04/15/nx-s1-5364887/kilmar-abrego-garcia-trump-court-order
the lies in our bones 
i too despair at what Trump is doing to this country, and all of us who call it home. I used to be proud of our nation, and our freedoms, our ethics. He is trampling all of that into the dust. He thinks it would be ok to send U.S. citizens to that same jail. Wake up people, before he declares himself king. Wake up, before its too late.
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Exactly—how can anyone support that unconstitutional abuse??
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