Jakelin Caal Maquin

I am quite certain that Kirstjen Nielsen doesn't know Neri Caal personally. That didn't stop her from blaming the 29-year old dad for the death of his daughter, Jakelin Caal Maquin. Jakelin is the 7-year old who died of dehydration and toxic shock while in the custody of the Border Patrol in southern New Mexico. Nielsen is the Secretary of Homeland Security.

I don't know Neri Caal either. I don't know what made him undertake the dangerous trip from his home in Raxruhá, Guatemala with his little girl. I do know some things, though.

I know that Neri Caal didn't want to leave his home, that he considered it a necessity.

I know that the Q'eqchi' Maya of Raxruhá have been victims of corporate and state violence for decades. I know that a Hydro Santa Rita employee shot 11-year old David Pacay Maaz and 13-year old Isaac Guitz Maaz to death a few years ago because of local protests against the dam project. I know that Hydro Santa Rita was a scheme by Dutch bankers to cash in on EU carbon credits without consulting with anybody in the community.

I know that when Congress tripled the budget for border enforcement, President Bill Clinton instituted the policy of concentrating resources on the areas around San Diego, El Paso, and the lower Rio Grande, funneling border crossers into the most dangerous deserts and mountains like those around Antelope Wells where Neri Caal and his daughter Jakelin crossed.

I know that Border Patrol agents consider it "smart" to destroy water jugs left by good samaritans on the desert trails. (You can see video here.) I know that the ACLU has identified a "culture of cruelty" within Customs and Border Protection.

I know that the horror of our southern border as a war zone did not begin with Donald Trump. I know that the horror of ethnic and class violence, backed by US military power, in Central America did not begin with Donald Trump.

I know that Jakelin Caal Maquin is not the first child to die from the horror. I know she will not be the last.

Nevertheless, I cannot get her dad, Neri, or her mom, Claudia, out of my mind. I cannot stop thinking about her siblings, Abdel, Angela, or Elvis.

I cannot stop mourning the death of Jakelin. I cannot stop mourning the death of Jakelin. I cannot stop mourning the death of Jakelin.

Being in the moment with Prophet

A little over two months ago I noticed that our dog, Prophet, was unsteady on his feet when turning around quickly. He was also struggling to jump into the car, and slipping when walking downstairs. The vet thought we were looking at arthritis, and I began giving him anti-inflammatories along with the dietary supplement he has been taking since having surgery for a ruptured cruciate ligament in 2017. After a couple of weeks, though, I wasn't seeing any improvement with the Rimadyl, and the vet asked that we get an x-ray.

Prophet racing down a 75˚ incline

The images showed only minor arthritis -- not nearly enough to account for Prophet's problems with walking -- and the vet said this indicated degenerative myelopathy. He explained that it is a progressive and incurable condition and that it is similar to ALS in humans. Prophet is seven. I know that the lives of dogs are quicker than ours, but I had been hoping for a few more years of long, active, daily walks in the wooded parks of the Bronx. The vet said that he couldn't predict the progression of the disease, but that we were probably looking at half a year to two years.

Prepped for cold laser treatment.

After Prophet's cruciate ligament surgery, we took him to an animal hospital in Manhattan for some physical therapy. We decided to bring him back with this new problem. The rehab vet did a gait analysis and a DNA test. He recommended a daily regimen of massage and exercise that I could do and also initiated some sessions with their physical therapists, including cold laser treatment, underwater treadmill, balance challenges, and walking over hurdles. Back when Prophet was a puppy he had a catastrophic illness.  After that, e purchased health insurance. It paid for part of this.

Some dogs don't like the vet. Prophet fights to go. It is the one destination that makes polite leash

Underwater treadmill.

walking impossible because he is so anxious to see the people he knows there. The animal hospital is a little different. He treats that as a day spa. He loves the underwater treadmill and loves being towel-dried afterward. He really likes being rubbed with the cold laser and even tolerates the protective goggles. He doesn't fight to go inside as he does at the vet. He just gets a huge smile and leads the way.

I don't know why the rehab vet is so confident that I am fastidious about doing Prophet's exercises and massage everyday. Maybe he says this to everybody on the theory that they are more likely to be consistent if he says that they are. Nevertheless, I do, in fact, make certain to follow all his instructions. If I am honest, it is another way of expressing our closeness and that became increasingly important after being told that our time together would be shorter than I thought. And I realized, too, that dogs live each day for that day. They don't fret about the future. I owe it to Prophet to try to do the same. As long as we are out in the woods every morning I should enjoy those walks and not worry about how many more we might have.

After a month and a half we returned for a new assessment. This included the same measurements and gait analysis as before. I hoped that we were slowing the progress of degeneration. Instead, the rehab vet informed me that Prophet's thigh muscles were stronger than they had been at our previous visit with more bilateral symmetry! He reminded me that during our previous visit Prophet had stumbled each time we turned around at the end of the hall. While his gait wasn't perfect, this time there were no stumbles at all. And he told us that the DNA test was inconclusive, that Prophet only had one copy of the gene associated with degenerative myelopathy and was therefore probably only a carrier.

At the time I found all this news merely puzzling. Myelopathy is a diagnosis of exclusion and I knew I was not going to do all the tests necessary to rule everything else out, especially because it wouldn't affect treatment: there is no treatment for the condition. And since deciding that I need to live in the moment with Prophet I felt less worried about an actual diagnosis anyway. So I just continue to give him his daily physical therapy and massage. But this weekend felt different.

Saturday we went to Van Cortlandt Park and I decided to let Prophet decide where we went. He was very determined to set a course and a pace. He led me from the Northwest Woods by the horse stables across the bridge to the Parade Ground then all the way down Broadway to the Van Cortlandt House. Then we had to cross the old Putnam Division right-of-way to the lake, through the marsh, back across Tibbett Brook and back to the Northwest Woods. He was in an extremely cheery mood the entire time, despite the fact that he has to be on leash the entire way and this is close to a two-hour walk, longer than we have done since the weakness in his hind legs appeared.

Up on the ridge in Van Cortlandt Park

Yesterday we went to Van Cortlandt Park again, but this time I insisted on setting the course and the pace. We walked the Northwest Woods, up the flat path to Yonkers, then climbed to the ridge and back south. One thing I have not done since the initial diagnosis is to put him in a sit-stay and then summon him from a distance over rough ground. It seemed reckless. But that is just what I did yesterday. Near the end of the walk is a rocky promontory with a precipitous drop of over 80 feet to the paved path. It's emotionally an easier ask with the leaves off the trees because he never loses sight of me. I second-guessed myself a lot as I walked down, but I talked myself into it. He made the twists and turns of his descent at speed and without incident.

So my decision to live in the moment is surviving. He is not one hundred percent, but there is no doubt that he is stronger than he was when we first brought him to the vet and stronger still than he was when we first brought him to the animal hospital. His friendship is a blessing to me and I am thankful for it every day.

Fred Hampton

Today is December 4, the forty-ninth anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton. In the predawn hours of December 4, 1969, a death squad from the Chicago Police Department, working with the FBI, shot up an apartment where members of the Black Panther Party were living. An undercover agent had drugged Fred Hampton, the 21-year old chairman of the Illinois Black Panther Party, so he was not awakened by hundreds of shots coming through doors and walls. The police dragged his pregnant girlfriend from their bed, then shot him again. She heard them say, "He's good and dead now."

I was a classroom teacher from 1975 to 2000 and I did not let a December 4 pass by without explaining this story to my social studies classes. After the second Eyes on the Prize series came out on public television I was able to use the episode titled "A Nation of Laws?" to do this better than I could with my words. For the last decade, or so, I have been posting about this on Facebook.

But this post isn't about the murder of Fred Hampton, it is about teaching and learning. I won't see it this year, because 49 years isn't a round number and there won't be a huge number of social media posts about him. I'll see it next year. I will see a former student posting, as a rhetorical question, "Why didn't they teach us this in school?"

Now I know very well why that individual, whoever it will be, will have forgotten that, yes, I did. Yes, I did teach you about Fred Hampton. It will be because they never quite heard it. There is a profound difference between what I say aloud in a classroom as a teacher (what I "teach") and what my students learn.

In the years after 1989 I worked hard to incorporate this understanding into my classroom practice. I still hear former students who remember things that I don't even remember happening and don't remember things that I truly emphasized. But I hear fewer of them from the students I taught in the last decade before I became an administrator.

I write this here. I don't know if anybody will read it. But on Facebook and Twitter I remind people about Fred Hampton. I put it up less than an hour ago. People are already seeing it. Still trying to teach.