Connecting the world, they wait for us

I am waiting for the boys to emerge from the cave. I am praying to any God that might be listening that there be no more fatalities. I have been watching the screen and checking for updates from this far away and I can feel it. My palms are sweaty and my pulse quickens as I check the news again. I am not alone. The anxiety of mothers, fathers, sister, brothers, friends, and neighbors fills the air around the globe as we wait together.

I am waiting for lost boys to come home to a home I’ve never seen. I am waiting for lost boys to feel the embrace of the ones closest to them even though I am living in a different country, speaking a different language, eating different foods and bowing to a different God.

I am waiting for lost boys because my humanity is stronger than the color of my skin or the name of my Book or the geography of my land or the history of my people.

I have waited for lost boys before.

I am surprised at how familiar it feels.

I am relieved at how familiar it feels.

I can only demand the world view my children as equally as I view all children. I am waiting for these boys the way I would want someone to wait for mine and I am comforted that I have found that love inside me.

In a dark cave, an open field, a mountain range an ocean bed, concrete tomb, a park bench, a dense forest, a fenced-in cage and a lonely room, the warm and cold bodies of lost children wait for our humanity to grow larger than our specific brand of life and work together to find them.

I wait with the world in a surreal moment of unity and send up my hopes and prayers to join the human spirit I have been witnessing as the mouth of the cave opens to bring back our boys.