Tears in the Target Parking Lot
I cried in the Target parking lot.
It wasn’t due to a lack of toilet paper, it wasn’t even in the last 5 years.
I was sitting in my then fiancés Suburau. We had just finished our wedding registry. New towels, new dishware, new bedding.
And I cried. I wept.
Grace. Carlos. Noah.
Those were names that haunted me. Names of real people. Children, adults, elderly. Those I had hugged, those who didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from.
And here I was, in the United States, the land of free refills, clean water and flushable toilet paper, picking out new plates because, “we were getting married and our old ones weren’t good enough.”
3.1 million children will die from undernutrition this year according to UNICEF. 3.1 MILLION, a number that is still too large to comprehend.
I still can’t fathom that number. I have seen those children. I have hugged those children and yet, that number remains a number.
Sitting here in my comfortable home, kids tucked quietly into their beds, their bellies full, it is not something any of us can reconcile. Especially in this often broken but beautiful world.
As for me, I will continue to do what I can. I will bring light to the darkness. I will love ALL humanity regardless of where they live, after-all we're all God's children.