twenty years

This week is Spring Break for our school, which means that I have slept in everyday until the blissful hour of 6am. Yeah... I can't really sleep in because my body is in the rhythm already, but I can refuse to leave my bed until 730 or 8, which I cannot do on a regular school day. Our Spring Break coincides with Genocide Memorial Week here in Rwanda. On Monday, I was able to attend the big meeting that kicked off the whole week. Everyone gathered at the district offices, walked over to the memorial that's behind my house for a short ceremony and laying of flowers, then walked to the stadium for a series of speeches and singing. I did not understand a word of what was said, but the grief was palpable.

In no way am I comparing my experience to that of genocide, and I praise God that I have never experienced anything like that, I just need to write something out. The biggest total loss I've experienced was due to Hurricane Katrina. We were living in New Orleans. Dad was actually deployed in Baghdad at the time, so Mom packed Erich and me and the pets up in the van and we went to Northern Mississippi. I had a duffle bag of clothes and a few things including my homework that Mom kept telling me to complete to turn in to my teachers on Monday because we were going back as soon as this storm blew through, right? Well, it didn't just blow through. Our one-story house held 8 feet of water for weeks. The thing is, I was never homeless or hungry, my whole family was safe, there was hardly a hiccup in my education as I was back in school the next week. We switched cities and started again. It was certainly hard, but we were provided for every step of the way.

Each year that passes, I miss New Orleans deeply. I miss New Orleans as a home, the people I love there, and the music, food and culture that make it such an incredible city, but the tide of grief seems to ebb a bit further out to sea. Could the pain of genocide ever be like that? It's been 20 years, and, for individuals, the pain and grief seem to be as visceral and real as they ever were. Don't get me wrong, there have been incredible steps of reconciliation for this nation and its people, but that's some painful stuff. I don't know that it will ever fall away.

I was two, a baby, when it happened. There are people my age here who have lived with unimaginable loss for their whole lives, my whole life.

Come, Lord Jesus. Come.