Helping kids keep going when everything isn't okay

Don't try to do it all! Take the next smallest step and see where it takes you.

Hi friends,

When my kids come home today, I’m going to have to break the news that Jimmy, our cuddly orange cat, has aggressive cancer, and we’re going to have to let him go very soon. I don’t like that it’s happening, but I’m grateful for it.

My kids have known death, but never someone who has been with them every day since I brought them home as newborns. It’s going to change their world and the way they move throughout their days. With our family of 6 (two adults, two kids, two cats) broken, everything will be just a little less cozy and symmetrical than it was before.

And when they wake up on a sunny morning in a couple of weeks, it may seem weird and kind of offensive that the world just keeps trucking on after a chunk of our family has broken off and drifted out of our reach.

Jimmy, a small orange tabby cat bends down to peer into Q’s bassinet as Q (a human infant) looks up at Jimmy with that confused expression babies usually have when trying to figure out what’s going on. Behind him, Jimmy’s sister Dean is turned away and has no interest in the baby.

It’s not okay, but it will have to be okay. Because even without Jimmy, we’ll still be here. This is how they’ll discover that after terrible things happen, we must keep going.

We’re lucky enough that the death of an aged cat is an inevitable part of life. So we’ll hold space for each other in our grief, and we’ll find comfort in knowing he had a good life, that this wasn’t avoidable, and that it’s just the way things go.

And unfortunately, we’ll have to use this rite of passage to prepare them for the stuff that is most definitely not okay, the stuff that could have been avoided - those that are senseless, cruel, and gut-wrenching.

It feels small and silly to focus so much of my attention on this cat’s natural death as millions of people lose family to manufactured starvation and violence in Gaza, trafficking and violence in the Congo and Sudan, and the US administration’s kidnapping of immigrants and violence on targeted people here in my own neighborhood.

But here we are, crying over 5.6 lbs of orange fluff, whose death isn’t caused by intentional greed, cruelty, and violence. It feels like a mercy, and honestly it feels like a silly and trivial and weird thing to pay so much attention to right tnow.

Alas, this is what’s going on. Soon, my kids will learn that life goes on after the world shakes, and that injustice still needs our attention, even when we ache.

Hopefully we will transmute this new pain into compassion and a bit of toughness, realizing we can’t stop things like terminal cancer - but there are a great many things in this world that we can stop.

No one expects you to stay bouncy and active 24/7, picking yourself up and dusting yourself off as if you could switch attention like a robot. But when these small disasters come for your family, I know you can handle it with care. Even while engulfed in politics, advocacy, and those huge world problems.

And I also know you will give your kids solace, hope, and the tools they need to keep showing up as things fall apart.

This June, pick a topic below and examine how your family can build a bright new future (albeit one sadly lacking in this one little cuddly orange cat.)

Find everything you need to get started in the updated June Family Action Toolkit

---

Charlene Maddox, a Black woman with a black head wrap and bright yellow cardigan, sits on her sofa holding two squirming young children. She holds a photo of her husband to show the camera as her infant reaches toward the photo and her toddler sprawls across her legs. Dark circles line her eyes and her mouth is in an expression that looks too tired to smile

Help Charlene Maddox & her two toddlers as they fight to bring their father back home

If you’ve been frustrated and feeling ineffective in helping families as ICE kidnaps our neighbors, a member of the Raising Luminaries community is organizing a campaign to support Charlene Maddox, a mother with two children under 3 whose husband was suddenly taken by ICE, leaving her to suddenly support her kids alone while working as an elementary school teacher.

More ways to help immigrants targeted by ICE:

• Donate to a family impacted by immigrant detention & displacement

• Attend a Defend & Recruit Training to build an ICE defense network, make advocacy calls, and organize locally to protect your neighbors.

• Learn how to share a room, spare unit, or other dwelling/space with a LGBTQI+ refugee or asylum seeker with Rainbow Railroad

• Support immigration and legal services for asylum seekers and detained immigrants with through the PAIR project.

---

Coming up next

The Summer Caregiver Collective is now open for enrollment. In our 6 week virtual workshop, we gather to focus our floodlights into a laser-beam of sustainable action. Space is limited, so register now if you’d like to join us this July.

Meanwhile, can we just pause for a moment to acknowledge the hard work you’ve done this year?

We’re almost halfway through the year, and you’ve held your family, your community, and those who rely on you together with compassion, hard work, and a collection of strings and ribbons because you were sure someday they would be handy and how can we add more trash to the landfill in this stage of climate disaster?!

:: deep breath ::

I see how hard you’re working, and I appreciate getting to be in community with you. As a thank you, please enjoy this allergy-friendly virtual bowl of freshly picked strawberries. I picked them fresh for you off the internet.

Strawberries. Yum!

You deserve it! Enjoy!

With you,

Ashia

---