Recap of Three Days, Three Daughters…

Over the course of September 1-3, I participated in Three Days, Three Daughters: An International Hunger Strike. I’d like to share some of my experiences from the strike and my feelings about the three days of fasting.

First and foremost, the fast itself was really inspirational. It really just put absolutely everything in perspective for me. Three days of fasting is so, so little to essentially “give up” in exchange for what these three women are missing every single day. To be a part of a greater voice for those who have been silenced…in that respect, what’s a mere three days, really?

My kids sat at the table with me as I documented yesterday, my third and final day of striking. As I was writing, the kids sat alongside me, just coloring in their new coloring books, swapping crayons, discussing snack options. It was business as usual in our house. It was an ordinary day. But it made me really reflect on how lucky and grateful I am to have ordinary days.

There are days I have what I call “parenting meltdowns”—where I’m not at peak performance. There are days that I pine for the kids’ bedtimes after breaking up 5,837 squabbles in a span of several hours. Yet at the end of the day, we are here, we are together. I am the mother of two-point-five amazing little people who light my life in a million different ways every single day. Even after the most horrid of days, when I check in on both of my sweetly sleeping babies, when I kiss my fingertips and touch their closed bedroom doors as I do every night, I think to myself, “This. This is perfection. For this I am grateful every day.”

The three mothers, Loyda, Raquel, and Olga—they’ve been somewhere on my mind almost constantly since the strike started. In part, I’ll be honest—I cannot even fathom having one of my children kidnapped, let alone being essentially left to my own search with no help from the government, investigators, or the media. As I sat at the table with the kids yesterday, I looked up at both of them and thought of how my life would go on if I faced an empty spot at the table where one of my children belonged. I know I’d keep going for the rest of my family, but part of me wonders how on earth such a feat would even be a possibility. How could I be expected to make dinner, wash the laundry, breathe? I don’t know.

I do know this. The strike put my life in perspective, but it also equally raised my awareness of the injustice these women—and so, so many others in Guatemala and far beyond—are facing on a daily basis. This is their life, this loss. I am honored to have taken part in such a tremendous movement, in an international cry for justice for those whose cries go unassisted, whose prayers go unanswered, and whose voices remain unheard.

Photo Credit.

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