Child on Back

This piece is probably a paid tribute to all those Congo women I have just seen on the news; child on back, household on head and mind, threads of hope in heart, running away from the ear piercing, adrenaline pumping sound of invisible gushing bullets. This piece is probably dedicated to those like these women, baggage upon baggage, running away from the harshness of life in search of a safe haven. And these women are much like us all, living the hard way just like us, even though sometimes it seems like theirs is much harder. But think about it. This stranger called life calls on us with every waking moment. 99 per cent of our awake time is spent trying to relate wit this stranger. Its issues we bear, they become our issues. And just like the frightened Congo mama holding to feeble hands of her young, we hold on to feeble hands of the future. Child on back for me, you wonder? The struggles, the wins, the losses, the ups and downs that are meant to make us better people. If it don’t kill you, it just makes you stronger, that’s what they say. But even as we run, do we really? These ‘children’ finally get a place in our systems, tightly and safely buckled to our backsides, sort of etched marks on our footpaths, indicators of where we have been and sometimes where we are headed. Constant reminders of that we carry, so close yet sometimes so heavy, yet we just can’t seem to let go. We just can’t seem to detach ourselves from this ‘load’.
But the question still begs, with this child on back, will we ever get to the Promised Land? When will the journey ever stop? When do we get to the cross roads, how much harder, how many more long treacherous days, blood-hungry nights, how much longer? When do we finally get to breathe, let out that air that we have so desperately been rushing for? I mean, when do we get the children off our backs and let them walk? When do we let go? When do we get to listen to the lovely symphony of the avian chirps and just flow away with the music? When do we get to see the rhythmic harmony coloring of the rainbow? Just when do we let loose? When do we let the child down?
Maybe the courageous Congo mother, who has to be strong for herself and her household even more, has the answer.
Maybe we will never know.