We Resist

We herded the kids up the stairs on the way to get to bed much later than usual. All five of us, a disheveled caravan, taking it one step at a time. But then Husband froze and said to me, “Your watch.” I felt the familiar buzz on my wrist as I automatically glanced at yet another notification. “No school, 1/8 & 1/9. Check your e-mail for details.” I gasped. Everyone stopped. My 12-year-old spun to me. “What? What is it? What happened?” His fingers sprang to his hair and he twisted with newfound energy. His eyes, huge, lasered into mine. His little mouth twitched as he couldn’t decide whether to smile or to cry.

My phone was in my pocket, and I to unlocked it, found my e-mail icon and read the first words, “Out of an abundance of caution, MPS has canceled all classes…” and knew before reading any more exactly what was happening. I looked at Husband, whose eyes were also bulging, and said, “It’s okay. You’re okay. Dad and I just got a message on our watches and I want a minute to talk to him about it.” This invited panic.

“What is it! What happened? I’m scared. What is it?”

Now, 10-year-old Sister engaged. “Huh?” Little Brother, who is six, continued on upstairs, but Big Brother and Sister swarmed.

“Tell me! What is it?”

“You are safe. You are safe. We are okay. I just want to talk to Dad.”

“No. I’m scared, I’m scared. What is it?” He hopped on his toes, anxious, and pulled at my arm to see my watch.

Husband knew there was no way our oldest would quiet before we told him, and he sensed that what we’d say to the older two needed to be different than what the six-year-old heard. He coaxed Little Brother into the bathroom to brush his teeth and closed the door while I struggled up the stairs with the other two circling me, a tornado of anxiety escalating with every step.

Once upstairs, I pushed Big Brother’s upper arms against his torso, hoping his nervous system understood that he was in a safe and stable place. Sister gripped my arm as I gave Big Brother firm pressure. I looked first at him and then at Sister and said, “You are safe. We are safe. We five in this house are okay. School is canceled the rest of the week because we all want everybody to stay super safe.”

Big Brother blinked a few times. He tried to stop himself from smiling.

“I bet you’re feeling a whole bunch of things. Relief and confusion and probably happiness.”

Then, he smiled. He breathed. His shoulders dropped. “I’m relieved and I’m sad and I’m also kind of happy.” He is, after all, a 12-year-old.

Sister shrugged. She seemed neutral, and not very curious, really. Her anxiety presents in much different circumstances.

This was Wednesday night, hours after Renee Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent. This was the same day that other ICE agents tackled and tear-gassed high school kids and staff just outside Roosevelt High School.

Bedtime pushed back even later now. Husband and I didn’t even pretend that we could follow a routine at this point, as Big Brother and Sister split off in different directions to explore in their imaginations all the possibilities of a four-day weekend.

Would I go to work the next day? Would I need to stay home to watch the kids? Or would everything be closed? Canceled?

The night bumped from deepening understanding of the horrors of the day to the logistics of planning how to have the kids home during two work days. From disbelief that the United States government dispatched armed and masked agents to Minneapolis with the order to abduct people of color to the inconvenience of arranging childcare was an untethering from any reality I’ve known.

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We live in a different dimension. Not only is our country suffering, we here in Minneapolis are in a unique hell right now. Neighbors and community members are being hunted door-to-door. A family gets stuck in protest traffic and a flash bang erupts under their van, sending children inside to the hospital. People cannot go to work for fear of abduction.

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A protest rally and march was scheduled the Saturday after the shooting. I did go to work Thursday and Friday while Husband managed the kids between his work calls, but I was restless and confused and needed to be in community. I reached out to a friend who has kids in Big Brother’s school. She connected me to two other people and to a rapid response team chat that was already buzzing with parents and neighbors organizing to watch out on Monday for ICE at school arrival and dismissal time. People by the dozens arranged schedules to station at corners around the school’s boundary. Soon, I connected to my other kids’ elementary schools and learned that the same level of urgent coordination was underway. Committed and concerned people shared resources created to help community members who felt unsafe. Whistles and safety vests were collected and stationed around the community. This was certainly a rapid response team effort, and while every piece of this tragedy overwhelmed me, I felt proud to be a member of such a loving and resourceful group of people.

Husband and I asked the older kids if they’d like to go to the march with me, and I was happy that Sister said she would.

The temperature was in the 20s, and Sister suited up like Ralphy in “A Christmas Story.” We didn’t have a sign, but we had our bodies and our voices. There was such a crowd of people marching that I had Sister walk directly behind me while keeping her bundled arms wrapped around my waist. She was quiet and a little nervous. There were other kids there, but not many, and she was by far the smallest human nearby. I wasn’t able to meet up with anyone else I knew, so it was Sister, me, and thousands of Minneapolitans whose common goal was to communicate resistance to the inhumanity bred by Trump and performed by ICE.

So we marched. Eventually, there was enough space for Sister to stand next to me. She held my hand. I chanted with the crowd. I listened to groups of friends chatting about the literal ice under our feet and in what ways they were helping their neighbors. “See all these people?” I bent down to Sister in all of my marshmallow layers. “These are all people who know that what is happening is wrong, and they want to make sure everybody hears about it and sees it. We are using our voices and bodies to be loud and peaceful.”

After a few blocks she admitted she was getting cold. We marched back on the sidewalk a few blocks to the Midtown Global Market and waited in line for bubble tea and egg rolls. There were so many people there, all in line at different restaurants, many with signs they’d taken to the march. My favorite was a giant cardboard Stephen Colbert-sized Kristi Noem cowboy hat. That’s the kind of energy we had.

Later in the day we learned that our school district would offer online learning to any student too afraid to leave the house.

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I’ve learned that our school community is full of heart and hard work. There are students who need a trusted adult to escort them to and from school or the bus stop, so the rapid response teams have paired these students with these adults. There are families who need services like plumbing or other household tasks, so the rapid response teams have vetted and shared resources. Parents in our school community, and most if not all others in the Twin Cities, have sign-up sheets circulating for trusted adults to stand guard around our schools with whistles.

On Monday, I worried about Big Brother at school. On Wednesday, my daughter’s elementary school was being filmed by a strange car (I still don’t know what that was). Husband and I got reports after school each day that Little Brother has been struggling to be calm and quiet and, frankly, kind. Certainly Little Brother feels the tension, even though we don’t watch the news. I imagine he’s heard all kinds of things at school, and he doesn’t have the expressive language to articulate what he’s feeling yet. He responds with his body and his behavior.

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I played Minecraft with the kids for as long as I could stand it one night around Christmas. There was a point where Big Brother adjusted something in order to make the game render faster. Or something. When I turned my viewpoint in one direction, the pixelated features arose from empty space and combined themselves into landscapes that made sense. But it took a few moments. I watched as trees formed and seas sparkled into view and I joked that the appearance of recognizable places out of nothingness is essentially how I navigate myself when I’m driving — I have no idea where I am unless Google Maps directs me, and then, out of nowhere, the place I want to go appears in front of me.

Where this inhumanity goes from here seems to be a blank horizon of emptiness. I can’t fathom the future. I can’t imagine features emerging that resemble normalcy or familiarity. What is out there now? How will we ever come back from this? Being attacked by our own government? And who are these ICE agents, really? Why are they?

And what about these kids? High schoolers who endured COVID and a political assassination and a school shooting and now this? Teachers standing up against armed ICE agents assaulting students on school property. Kindergarteners who don’t know why their classmate disappeared. Online school for families who weren’t prepared. How can you prepare for this?

We are living an earthquake of uncertainty, a rolling news cycle of lies that works to separate us further. But Minneapolis resists. We march and record and protest and sing and dance and host an art sled rally down a hill at Powderhorn Park because creation is resistance to destruction. Singing with neighbors and dancing with trumpets is resistance. And being kind. Being human.

We resist.