Forgotten Foundations

Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
deserted in the desert ofirasif

Photo: Ofir Asif

 

“Will he come back?” Leah peered over the wall.

Rachel pulled her younger sibling back into the shade.

“Will he?” Leah pressed.

“I don’t know,” Rachel’s voice caught. She coughed to hide her fear. She’d break if her sister became frightened. It would make everything too real.

She didn’t know where they were. A car ride preceded a long hike into the desert and the nap in the ruins. “Best thing during the heat of the day,” Dad said.

He was gone by the time they woke, deserted like forgotten stones.

 

 

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Foundations in 91 words

17 thoughts on “Forgotten Foundations”

  2. This feels so real to me, Na’ama. (I want to jump into my “Magic Machine” and zoom off to rescue Dear Leah and Dear Rachel. Chicken Soup for all.) Thank you – TS

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    • Thank you, Dale … Mine too ….
      I was thinking of all the children — some of whom I know and had worked with — who’d endured abandonment when parents and caregivers simply up and left them, sometimes in great peril (as in the example in the story, fictionalized though it is), other times where the children had physical safety or at least the possibility of it (i.e. left the kids with relatives or neighbors or in orphanages or at school) but where the abandonment was often just as devastating. Not knowing. Not understanding. Believing one is unworthy of love. Believing one was at fault for not being ‘lovable enough’ for the parent to ‘keep them’ — these are wounds that rarely heal well and sometimes heal not at all.
      Then you have the current realities of forced separations where in the US Border Patrol personnel and ICE staff lied to kids and told the children who were torn away from their parents and whose parents were not allowed to know where they were taken to, that their parents left them, abandoned them, didn’t want them anymore and won’t ever be coming back for them–the level of cruelty in that still takes my breath away.
      So, yes, those poor girls. Those poor kids.
      Sigh. Na’ama

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    • Thank you, Carol. What a kind comment!
      Yes, child abandonment is one of those thing we’d be heartless to not have our heart ache reading about, even in fictionalized accounts … For sadly we all know that children are abandoned (if not in ruins in the deserts than in many other ways), and the devastation this causes to their trust, their sense of safety, their belief in whether they are lovable and worthy of someone ‘sticking around’ for them. May we come to a time where no child will be deserted. And … thank you again for the comment! Na’ama

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    • Thanks, Rochelle. Yes, it is beyond comprehension, and yet throughout history it’s happened — and still does — in different ways and circumstances, and children are still abandoned by parents who for whatever reason do not wish to, or believe they cannot care for their children. I’ve worked with children who’d experienced similar (if not in a ruin in the desert, than in someone’s home or on a doorstep and even the proverbial ‘left under a pew in the church’) abandonment. Some as infants. Others as older children who did not know why they were no longer wanted, and why a parent isn’t returning. That’s before the cruelty of some current ‘leaderships’ who forcibly separate children from their families and then tell the children that their parents “didn’t want them anymore” or “aren’t coming back” (even as those parents desperately try to find their children and are prevented from doing so).
      It is all of it, beyond me. Hugs! Na’ama

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    • Thank you … and yes, abandonment always is a heart-breaker, whether it is done intentionally or happens tragically in other ways that for a child may end up feeling like an abandonment nonetheless. I’ve seen too many children who’d carried such wounds in their hearts, and while I’d much rather this only remain a fictionalized account, I’m gratified if the heartbreak was depicted in a way that was felt by the reader. Thank you again for the comment! Na’ama

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