12/19/22

By Josh Rubin

We set out on a journey to bring attention to the cruelty of the way we as a nation, indeed as a civilization, respond to people who must take to their feet to escape poverty and violence and despair. Our trip lasted only a few weeks, but gave us a glimpse at the enormity of their journeys, which they tell us, take months, sometimes years.

During those months many suffer unspeakable anguish. Those who make it to the border have lived through experiences that will never leave them. They arrive with hope, and trauma. And on our own journey we got only a taste of what they must carry forever, and that little bit that reached us will be our own burden, to carry back.

It is the end of our road. It ended at the ocean, which is vast enough to remind us how small we are, how we encounter forces that are beyond us. We face forces like that in our struggle, and the odds are mightily against us. Here is what we share with the valiant migrants who set out against a far more hostile universe.

We do not know what lies ahead. And we do what we do because we must.