Today when we arrived to see the George Floyd memorial, my 11 year old son emerged from the car wearing no shoes.
“Put your shoes on,” I said.
I was annoyed as my unruly and defiant child looked me square in the face, determined set to his jaw, and said, “No!”
I sighed. I knew this was a moment in which I could choose to battle, or choose my own sanity.
“Fine, it’s your feet that could step on something sharp, not mine,” I warned.
At the memorial, we walked around slowly, trying to wrap our minds around what we were seeing. My son was quiet as I pointed out some of the people depicted on signs in a circle in the middle of an intersection, blocked off from traffic.
“There’s Amanda Gorman, you saw her on TV. She’s a poet. There’s Martin Luther King, Jr. That’s Ahmaud Arbery, I did a memorial run for him, remember?”
He stopped and pulled a penny from his pocket with sticky fingers.
“I want to leave this here, but first we should say a prayer.” he said.
We held the penny together.
“Dear God, Please comfort George’s family and friends, and the friends and families of all these people. Please bring racial equality to our country, please let us love each other…” we stumbled through the prayer.
He placed the penny on the cinder block near the picture of Ahmaud Arbery.
When we reached the George Floyd mural he stood and stared at it for a long time. As I watched him, I added more to my prayer:
Dear God, let the defiant and unruly children grow to be defiant and unruly adults who, upon seeing racial injustice, look it square in the face with a determined set to their jaw, and say “NO!”
Ziggityblog 