It is 108 Degrees Outside

I am hot and anxious and heavy with grief.

It is 108 degrees outside. I am hot and anxious and heavy with grief. 

It is 83 degrees inside my house because there is a leak in my air conditioning system. It is being fixed. I am hot and anxious and heavy with grief. 

My limbs feel like bags of sand and they weigh me down. I press my cheek to the cool tile floor in my bedroom. I check my phone again, ignore the time limit I have set for myself and sign into instagram again. A rapid response team in my city posts another ICE sighting and I share it. My best friend in the third grade sends me a direct message. She thanks me for sharing about the raids in my city – she no longer lives here but her father does and she worries about his safety. She sends my posts to her father. I stare up at my bedroom ceiling and cry a little.  

One of my kids knocks on the door.

 “Mom?” 

“Coming.” 

Their dad is cooking dinner. I check the thermostat and watch it climb to 84 then 85 degrees. A little hand finds its way into mine and I am led into a dark room. At the door my son asks me for a ticket before entering, I pull a piece of paper with the word mom on it and hand it to him. 

“Enjoy the show.” 

Inside they have hung one of their dad’s flashlights between the railings of their bunkbed above a cardboard house. They tell me the play will be spooky but that it is not real and I don’t have to be scared. They confiscate my phone. When the play begins they go off script, they're giggling and making each other laugh, and soon they get so lost in play they forget about the show they spent thirty minutes rehearsing. I am sitting on my daughter’s bed far away from myself, the baby has his legs intertwined in mine, he grips my right arm with both of his hands nuzzling his face into me and I am hot, and anxious and heavy with grief. 

“I love you  mom.” he says into my arm. 

“I love you baby.” 

After dinner we go outside where it is now 105 and the sun is setting and there is a breeze. I turn the sprinkler on for my kids and they run and play for hours. They are soaked and elated and sticky with ice cream. I sip on ice water and watch the wind caress the trees and the sun dip lower and the sky darken. I watch them play and run.  I am sticky with sweat, I am hot and anxious, and heavy with grief. 

It is the second day of the ICE raids in my city, day five of the raids in California. I do laundry, rearrange my bookshelf. Deep clean the living room couch. Wash everything. I do and do so that I am not still. If I am still I check instagram and repost ICE sightings. I check my family’s location. I send them posts of ICE raids near them. My brother and I coordinate a grocery drop off to our mother. I call her. I hardly ever call her. I ask her to check her fridge and tell me what she needs after she only asked for a few things; eggs, milk, tortillas and sugar. 

“Don’t worry about it mija, I’ll just wait until things settle down to go to the store.” 

But we don’t know when and if they will stop. So I order enough meat to last her a week or two. I buy her things I know she likes to eat; cherries, bananas, a box of Frosted Flakes. And I picture her with a bowl of cherries heading back into her bedroom to lay on her bed and watch a movie and snack on her favourite summer fruit.

We talk about what is happening, I tell her my a/c is going out and that I am hot. We talk about the kids. I put away their laundry and by the time we end our phone call the laundry is all put away and I am sweating and a little hopeful. My parents have lived through so many versions of this nightmare, and listening to my mother talk about it without fear in her voice has soothed me. 

I do not tell her that I am anxious or heavy with grief.