Refugees

 

They arrive in endless lines. They carry babies and even their pets too old to walk. Their faces show how tired they are. Despite puff coats and  knit hats some with pom poms, they look cold.

Three months ago they were safe in their homes, preparing for Christmas. What will we eat on Christmas day? They look forward to Christmas Eve Mass. Conversations over the dinner table might include things like "Granma needs to be picked up Christmas Eve and I just found out I'm working till 4, can you do it?" or "I caught Galyna snooping in our closet for her Christmas presents." Ordinary family stuff.

They were safe then, the way we are safe now.

Now they their homes are rubble. Their future is limited to where they will sleep tonight. Will there still be a free cot in the wall-to-wall cots provided on the other side of the border. Someone will give them food, water, hopefully. When will they be able to take a shower or even brush their teeth?

In one way, they are luckier than the refugees from Syria and other war-torn Arab countries. They are often met with barbed wire, dogs and guns. They at least they survived the boat ride where others simply drowned. Maybe a future in tents is better than no future.

Not all refugees flee war. Some flee poverty. Others gangs. At the Mexican-American border they are called immigrants. They were not faced with bitter cold, but with their children being wrenched from their arms. 

Refugees aren't new. Most people don't know about 100,000 people fleeing Franco who walked over the Pyrenees in January's winds and snow to end up in concentration camps on the French beaches of the Côte Vermeille.

And after the war? Prisoners, living skeletons, released from German death camps, survived but just barely, alone having lost not just their homes but most of their families.

These are refugees from war, but weather, earthquakes, tornadoes, tsunamis and other disasters can turn any one of the planet into a refugee.

I sit here in a warm flat. Outside is a garden that is breaking into its spring clothes. I can walk to the lake and look at the ducks. My question about my next meal? Should I heat up left overs or cook something from scratch. Maybe go to a restaurant. 

The big thing in my future? A Garou concert in nearby France, tickets a Christmas gift from my husband. 

I have everything I need in life. Most of the refugees have no place to go to and no place to go back to.

I think there but the grace of God go I. And you.