Write Team: Finding safe haven in a violent world

I spent most of my working life serving categories of children and families experiencing trauma: runaway and homeless, abused and neglected, mentally ill, addicted, delinquent, incarcerated. I knew little about that work initially, having been trained to teach English. I think some careers choose us rather than vice versa.

I admire those who work with victims and perpetrators of trauma for their whole career, record their stories, weigh the damage inflicted on them and seek to make them whole. I served a caseload – first as an advocate at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and later as a caseworker at the Youth Service Bureau – for four years before moving on to administration. I don’t think I could have done it much longer.

The new Middle East War brought my past experience roaring back. More than 1,400 Israelis were killed by Hamas, many dying in their own homes. Hamas said that more than 4,300 Palestinians have been killed in response.

Two hundred hostages, mostly Israelis, are being held in Gaza. Homes in Gaza have been destroyed by air and missile strikes. Water and electricity have been shut off. Humanitarian aid is only trickling into Gaza over the Egyptian border.

Palestinians in northern Gaza have abandoned their homes and fled south as Israel readies troops for a ground assault from the north.

And, inexplicably, that conflict is spreading to other parts of the world. In Illinois, 6-year-old Wadea Al Fayoume was killed in his home, suffering 26 stab wounds, allegedly by his family’s landlord.

Wadea’s parents are from the West Bank, an Israeli-controlled Palestinian territory. Wadea’s mother moved here 12 years ago, his father nine years ago, and Wadea was born in the U.S.

His murder is being investigated as a hate crime.

When I read that news, I recalled violent incidents encountered at my job as director of YSB. One of my duties was to read and sign reports written by my workers about negative events in the course of our work that required special attention.

Many of the reports were detailed accounts of physical and sexual abuse disclosed to YSB workers. Later, I wrote the following about my reaction to one of those reports.

We added onto our house when the kids were adolescents. With the attached two-car garage came an unexpected safe haven, known as a salle port in the world of corrections, made possible by a remote-controlled garage door.

After reading an account of violence inflicted by adults upon their children, I drive home, press the garage door opener, pull to a stop in the garage, and shut off the engine.

I press the opener again, and the world, with all its noise and light, disappears slowly in my rearview mirror. The door rumbles shut, and I’m alone in quiet darkness.

I put my head on the steering wheel, close my eyes and soak up the silence. Steps away is another door that leads inside my home to the comfort and support of my family.

I am home, we are safe, and I am keenly aware of our privilege.

It is not hard to imagine the horror of having your home invaded, or being forced to flee the place you feel most protected. And our first reaction? To inflict the very same pain on our invaders, in a cycle of vengeance that will not stop until we break it.

Our neighbors in the Middle East, with support from other countries including our own, appear ready to pour in financial resources and sacrifice the lives of both citizen soldiers and civilians to inflict destruction upon their enemies in the hope of achieving some temporary level of safety.

Can we not instead imagine the people of the world and their governments investing that same time and treasure to build a lasting and just peace?

It is time we start.

Dave McClure lives in Ottawa. He is a long-retired director of a local private agency. He also is a blogger. You can read more from Dave at https://daveintheshack.blogspot.com.