A Time for Peace

The rain finally stopped.

We’ll be without it for several days now. The abnormally cold spring ended. The morning of the summer solstice dawned bright and steamy hot. The five-year-old girl I call The Mandrake came to the door before noon, wearing next to nothing, asking for a popsicle to cool down.

Later, I drove the grandmother of the Baker Street Irregulars downtown to the Juneteenth festival, with her disabled girl in tow. The grandmother was fretting, because the doctors have nothing but bad news. It isn’t autism; it’s not nearly that simple. It’s a genetic disorder with an extra chromosome. She’s got learning issues and mood and behavior issues; she can’t sit still, she can’t be left alone. There’s something alarming about her blood test results, so she’ll need another. She’s scheduled for a brain scan in the big city this summer. They’re trying to get her on SSDI.

“She’ll be like this the rest of her life,” said the grandmother, shaking her head. “The doctors said she’ll be like this the rest of her life.”

The little girl was anxious too. She is always anxious when her schedule is interrupted, or when she’s being taken to a new activity. I kept promising her a bounce house to play in and a foam party with bubbles. Yes, the bounce house would be just like the one she liked so much at the church festival. She could stay in as long as she liked, because it was free. No, no one would force her to play in the foam party if she didn’t want to. She could stay dry with her grandmother, or play in the mess with the other children. It was her choice.

As I was babbling, we drove past the Mandrake, walking with the Sylph— both of them filthy and unattended, their hair matted, their faces streaked with sweat. The Sylph waved happily at me, and I tried to smile.

With the day’s errands finished, I took Adrienne for a swim at the lake. All was peaceful, bright, green, and alive, just as summer ought to be. We stayed there until evening.

On Saturday, the first full day of summer, I woke up late to a stifling noon. They say the Ohio Valley is going into a heat dome. We’ll have agonizing heat indices in the three digits until at least Wednesday.

I pulled weeds and played with the cat. I brought in lettuce and cilantro for the guinea pig, because it was too hot for her to graze outside. I drove Michael to his shift at the restaurant, and spent too much money buying groceries on the way back. Adrienne wanted to try freezing chicken broth, so the cat could have something cold to eat as well, so I bought ice cube trays along with the ice cream and bottled water.

I expected The Mandrake or The Sylph or their brother, the Artful Dodger, to come to the house for more frozen treats, but they didn’t.

Several other neighborhood children came to play throughout the day. Each got a popsicle to help them bear the heat. I got out the hose to soak the ground around the tomato vines, half expecting The Sylph to appear when I did: she loves to drink out of the hose and let me soak her with it. But she did not come. They had been here multiple times a day since the beginning of summer, a little dirtier and more desperate every time, and now they were gone.

Jimmy’s boy said they’d gone to stay at their aunt’s place in Mingo, and I hoped he was right. Their slum house has no air conditioners, not even window box fans.  I can’t possibly keep them alive and safe in a heat emergency. It’s not as if anyone else cares for them.

There are so many people who need so many things.

All I want is for children to be happy and at peace.

I would give anything to anybody if it meant the children of LaBelle could always be happy and at peace, with everything they needed. I would go through any torture or pay any price if children all over the world could have good health and a safe place to live, a garden to play in and popsicles to eat in the summer. If I could magically cure the little Baker Street Irregular and stop her grandmother from fretting. If I could give the Mandrake, the Sylph and the Artful Dodger loving parents who kept them out of trouble.  If the children of the Lost Girl and the children at the Unity Kitchen and the children I’ve met at the after-school outreach, the children in Gaza and in Sudan and Ukraine could be happy and well. It’s all I want in the world.

I went in from the garden, and looked at the news on my phone.

That was when I saw that the United States had gone ahead and bombed Iran.

People were panicking, calling it an “illegal attack,” whatever that means. They were saying we’re looking at chaos, the deaths of thousands if not millions in the coming months, because the president wants to look important and is sad no one liked his parade last week. Iran, in turn, declared every American citizen a target. Missiles were lobbed at Israel. We’ve started another forever war in the Middle East.

“There is not another military in the world that could have done this,” boasted the president, as if that was something to be proud of. “Now is the time for peace.”

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows and Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.