Mama

I thought my house was haunted. Maybe I have been sheltering a poltergeist for years…

For three decades now, I often wake up from a dead sleep, startled by a voice saying, “Mama.” There is no one there. No child by my bedside. Just a clear voice calling out for me.

It turns out, I don’t have a little ghost, and this is a common experience. Almost universal.

When my kids were young, I found them beside my bed, calling for me. They were thirsty or scared or sick. Those nights are rare now.

We have five kids. All are out of the house except our teenage daughter, and if I hear her voice in the night, I know she is sick. She sleeps so hard that I’ve had to wake her up in the middle of storms and wind gusts loud enough to beat the band.

I wouldn’t know the feeling.

When the boys were in their teens, coming home from a night in town, they knew not to wake me. They always went to my husband’s side of the bed to tell him they were home before curfew. They would whisper, “I’m home,” and go upstairs to bed. My husband would listen and roll back over to sleep.

If the boys woke me, it was always a production I couldn’t control. A very dramatic production. I would sit straight up, gasping for air and words — sometimes I would scream. I didn’t know why it happened, but it did happen nearly every time. The boys started avoiding my side of the bed. They said I acted crazy when I heard them call for me.

I did some research a few years ago and found out that I’m not crazy.

It’s called “Maternal Hypervigilance.” It’s a state of heightened alertness to potential threats. It’s a "startle" response that is activated by sleep deprivation, stress, and anxiety. A shift from deep sleep to high-alert wakefulness when noises occur.

There it is.

I am not harboring a ghost, and I’m not losing my mind. I’ve been a mother for 30 years, and I guess it doesn’t go away. I hear my kids. I hear my grandkids. My voice in my own head has been waking me from a dead sleep for years, warning me to watch out for the kids.

A haunting call.

The call for “mama” is almost unbearable today. In this world. In this country.

When George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis in 2020, some of his last words were crying out for his mama. When millions of moms heard this, it became a rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter movement. Knowing he called for his mom as a monster knelt on his neck and suffocated him was unbearable for anyone.

I remember reading the account and feeling my stomach turn. Bile in my throat. A feeling of overwhelming sadness that someone’s son was murdered while he pleaded for his mother.

I joined the rallies. I marched in his name.

When a conservative neighbor found out I marched in our town, he told me that he couldn’t believe folks were burning down Minneapolis after his murder. Though this was untrue, I told him that I couldn’t imagine not burning down a town if my child were murdered in the street.

I can’t imagine bottling that rage. It would erupt. Explode.

But it didn’t stop with George Floyd. The cruelty is back in Minneapolis.

When I opened my news app on my phone yesterday, I felt that sinking feeling in my stomach again. I saw a little boy, an ICE agent behind him, standing next to a vehicle. The first photo I saw just showed his little body, protecting his identity, I assume.

I couldn’t see his face.

The second photo I saw broke something inside me — the same thing that keeps breaking with every inhumane act happening across the country in the name of “Immigration Enforcement.”

I saw the little boy’s sweet face and felt the startle reflex. The stress. The anxiety.

A little boy dressed in a warm plaid coat, with a Spider-Man backpack, and a blue winter hat that resembled a bunny, stood still while an agent menacingly had a hand placed on the small backpack. Holding him in place. Using him as bait, knowing his dad would come for his little boy.

The boy was used to kidnap his dad, but the boy was kidnapped as well, and both are rumored to be in Texas.

His name is Liam. I swear I can hear his voice.

I’ve seen countless videos of children screaming while ICE agents grabbed their parents and slammed them to the ground. Stuffing humans into unmarked cars.

I have read reports from teachers in Minneapolis who say they can’t take children on field trips because school buses are now targets for masked and armed men.

School buses are targets…

I can’t believe what is happening, but I have to — the evidence is in front of all of us. I can’t ignore my own eyes. The only people who don’t see what is happening are those who are willfully ignorant. The only people who support ICE tactics are whose who are willfully evil.

A few days ago, I woke to a cry for mama again.

I was on the couch because I don’t sleep much anymore. I wander from room to room in silence because I don’t want to wake anyone else. I don’t turn on the TV because I don’t want to be drawn to the news, which is why I also leave my phone to charge in another room — I need a few hours without horror.

And that is my privilege. The horror isn’t outside my door, and they aren’t slamming my children on the pavement.

But they are harming someone’s child. They are kidnapping someone’s child.

They are brutalizing an entire nation by brutalizing someone’s kid. They are haunting us with their cruelty.

If you don’t hear the call to do something, I hope you will listen more closely, but I know many of you are already startled awake at night. I know you hear the sounds of the people dragged away by masked men meeting a quota set by a brutal regime.

Rise up. Stand up. Talk back.

Answer the call. They are calling your name.

~Jess

The things I do on a weekly basis to expedite the end of the regime:

• I write my Congressman and Senators weekly. They are Trump sycophants, but I won’t let them act like they didn’t know. I publish my letters to them on social media to help others write their own

• I write letters to the editor of local papers so rural folks know there are progressives doing the work in our communities

• I rally and protest in public in my small town

• I crowdfund for down-ballot Democrats to try to win seats in my GOP-dominated state. Here is a link.

• I consistently use my social media to push out factual articles on the atrocities