#BringThemHomeNow

Aug 21, 2024

I see their eyes and my broken heart is on fire.

I was feeling tired, so I was going to go to sleep early. Call it a night. Relax. But I opened YouTube. Maybe a funny clip or two before bed.

I look at my phone and I see Rachel and Jonathan, once again ripping their hearts out of their bodies and speaking eloquently and clearly on yet another world stage, asking, demanding, pleading for their son's life.

It's become so normal-feeling to take off my now-rusty Hostages dog tag and my yellow #BringThemHomeNow bracelet before I lay down. They're the first things I put on in the morning. Three hundred and twenty days later the horrific has become ritual, routine. No. NO. Suddenly I am shocked into remembering this is not the way it once was, and the world as it is is not acceptable. This horror is blasphemous. I am shocked out of the encroaching normalcy of it all.

I was feeling tired.
But what do I know about tired?

Rachel and Jonathan are my peers. We've met.
Their son Hersh is my children's age.
They are me. He is me.
I clutch my own chest as Rachel clutches hers.
I call my children just to tell them I love them.

I'm not tired any more.
I see their eyes and my broken heart is on fire.
What next?

#BRINGTHEMHOMENOW

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