I haven’t prayed to a God in over a decade.
That’s not a humble-brag, that’s just we’re I’ve been, spiritually, for most of my life. I haven’t had a moment so profound that it required outside assistance from a deity in a long time. I’ve waited, patiently, for the right moment to speak to God (we spoke once and it was fine, I just wasn’t ready for what they had to say) and on this Thursday, the tenth of June, in the year of our President, and known malarkey hater, Joe Biden 2021 that day had arrived.
My son is not a coward. Not in the traditional sense, you see. He is a very sensitive young man, whose gamut of emotions are the object of some of my derision. Not because the kid can show emotions, no. Be far from me to try to enforce stoicism into yet another Hispanic male, after having witnessed the horrors of toxic masculinity first hand. Be it my time in Puerto Rico, where men are not allowed the smallest of tears, or the United States Air Force, where crying is encouraged until it actually happens, and then there’s chaos and confusion about it. It is his bravery that irks at me. A child unmoved by the weight of emotions, so willing to participate and sometimes encourage our deepper emotions: rage, melancholy, existential dread, and so on. So young, so brave, like this country of ours.
My son, the youngest boy of four children (I’m aware that’s a lot, thanks for your concern) had a run-in with mortality on this day. This hot summer day, 94° glorious degrees of post-pandemics, post vaccinations and post insurrections - we had decided, as a family, to go to City Park Pool by the beautiful lake in Fort Collins, Colorado. For those that have been here before, you are, I’m sure, aware, or at least familiar, with the two slides. The centerpieces of this small community pool, there are two slides: a steep behemoth that plunges you off the face of the Earth in mere seconds, only to caress you down with the coolness of chlorine infused water, and the loopy slide, a more child friendly situation, equally tall but smoother and with a less frightening fall.
I saw my son’s eyes well up within an instant after we started the twenty-feet-plus climb up the side metal structure that connected adjacent to the slides. There is a point in said steps where the metal beams on the bottom cease to be. It is an immediate warning to anyone with a fear of heights, and respect for the concept of death. He stood frozen as he stepped into it: “the Precipice of Death.” As a parent, I’ve taken great pride in never forcing my children to do anything that would negatively impact them, unless it was for their own well being. Vaccines, emergency room visits, disgusting medications, and dubious medical practices - those are the only things that will allow my conscience to crush their spirits. But my son stared up at me, his eyes a little too familiar, being the third child of the four, just like me. Middle children are seldom centers of attention, which is fine and dandy, until moments like this happen. We turned around and I tried reassuring him that it was fine. It was all fine.
My partner, a more adventurous person, and someone whom has zero issues with the pull of gravity, the concept of heights as a negative thing, or even the idea of death has never seemed to faze them - they decided to go up the metallic monstrosity once more, and my son followed. The next five to ten minutes are important. Because I see my son, now from a completely different perspective, above me, doing the mental gymnastics that are required for a person staring into this so called precipice of death. He is negotiating his emotions, his mortality, and his bravery. I see him, and I decide to pray.
After a small prayer, submerged halfway in the water, knees crossed, I stare back up and see my son motivated and moving. And that’s when I saw her.
Red. White. Blue.
My pride swelled, but why?
In the center of the structure, with the June afternoon sun bathing her back, I could see the aura of a woman. She wasn’t a white person, was my immediate assessment. My second immediate thought, was that her bathing suit was full coverage with a head hood, ergo a Muslim. A Muslim woman in a bathing suit, with three stripes: red, white, and, blue. She swayed about until, finally, she took a running start (in that height!) and dove onto the steep slide. The one that plummets you into your corporeal demise within nanoseconds. The slide that I fear, at almost forty years old, and having seen horrors in crime ridden countries and military institutions. She conquered it with much gusto. Which is when it hit me.
“This woman is the embodiment of America.”
A nation, undeterred by a pandemic, impossibly brave in the most oppressive of scenarios. A country that fought police brutality and institutionalized racism in the peak of said pandemic. The same country that rejected the whims of a would-be-dictator, and clapped back by unifying all of its people into fighting for the principles of democracy: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I saw life in this youthful girl. I observed her practice liberty, manifested in the fusion of her religion and the iconography of Americana. But, above all, I was allowed to bear witness her chase for the American Dream, the pursuit of happiness, and the indomitable will of its people - no matter where we come from.
I was proud of my son on this day. I was proud of this young Muslim girl exercising her freedom. But, above all, I was proud to be an American in this post-COVID world once more.
I met America today, and I hope that every American can have the opportunity to meet them in any way, shape, or form. Be it at the hundreds of national parks we have, the countless national monuments we visit with our tongues firmly placed inside our cheeks, or even at that family visit we’ve been putting off since this insane pandemic began.
The United States of America are open once more, let’s go out there and enjoy it!
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