I lay in my bunk and stare blankly at a spot on the wall where the paint is peeling back. You can see where the walls have been painted over without being scraped…forming layers like that of strata on an archaeological dig. I slip my fingernail beneath each layer, and as it slowly loosens and separates from the others I breathe deeply…close my eyes and think of the souls entrapped here during the rime of that layer. How many women cried themselves to sleep here when this color covered the walls? How many had their families broken, their dreams crushed? How many stared at that spot, with that color…day after day after hope killing day?
And yet… how many lives were saved? How many families reunited, how many fresh starts were begun with the shining promise of tomorrow?
And so that spot on the wall next to my bunk serves as a reminder that I am not the first…nor will I be the last…to struggle in this place…to feel the specific pain of being completely separate from everything I know and love…to slowly turn that struggle and that pain into a determined pathway toward wholeness and hope. I’m not the first or the last.
9-12-2016
