An Image of the Estrangement

I saw them. The three of them, two little girls and a boy, were in front of a building run by their father. The eldest girl, no more than ten years old, was humming a song by a singer from her country. As for the middle one, she was wiping, with a paper towel, something off her brother’s mouth. This is an image of the estrangement of which our children are suffering in more than one place. Man is created in a place. This is his place of living, unless he is expelled from it like Adam, or God relocated him to another like Abraham... Here, is the place, my place, in which I can lean on my family and friends, in which my children find close affections that contribute to their raising. I mentioned the little girl taking care of her brother. I do not know if, for her, caring was a matter of fact prompted by their mother's preoccupation in one of the building houses, for example. What I do know is that this image, which I see here in our neighborhoods every day, increases my prayer to the Lord to keep from all of us the burdens of estrangement.