"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

I thought about this quote a lot over the past month, fighting my hard battle. There has been a lot that has been very strange about the past month. I mean, really bizarre. The psychology of the whole thing is really beyond my armchair pop psychology abilities… in others, it’s fascinating, uplifting, disappointing to see who was there, who stepped up and who didn’t and how others reacted. There was this amazing, completely indescribable outpouring from the world. I said something like this at the press conference back in Minnesota, but without the Wailing Wall portion—I remember being at the Wailing Wall and feeling this energy… because whether or not you believe it has its own sacredness, there is so much human energy being focused toward it, it was palpable. I found the same to be true over this month, I felt like I could actually feel the energy and work and support of so many, many people. I was like the mom who lifts a Volvo off her toddler, there was this superpower that was fueled by that energy. Amazing. And lots of other words that are so overused that when something that truly incredible happens… they sound weak.
But in this extreme crisis, I was amazed at how both beautifully wonderful and completely cruel strangers can be. So much, more than I will ever know, of our success is due to friends and strangers reaching out, taking action and making this critical mass work. And I can't be more grateful. But to the woman who yelled at me to "get off the phone!" the day my dad was arrested and I was standing at the side of the gas station talking to a reporter? And the woman who was incredibly rude and put out when my dad's wife knocked over her empty glass while getting into our table at a restaurant after learning hours earlier that my dad would be released and preparing to eat our first meal of the day at 3pm after attending the UN Security Council Meeting? And to the reporter who misquoted me, causing me to called my father’s despicable lawyer daughter in the comments of the article-and every other one to come? And to whoever called me a prostitute in some other comments? And to the man who yelled at the overworked medical resident to move her car after she'd driven over an hour to see her friend who lives across the country and whose father was just released from 3 weeks in Rwandan jail? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? The vitriol was astonishing. You’re calling me and my family monsters and wishing us ill? See, I (the monster or at least spawn of the monster) would never say such cruel things about anyone. I would never delight in a family’s misery and fear and call names. Why? Because I was raised better by that monster. Even just being rude because you're having a bad day... unacceptable, you never know the effect of your unkindness on someone in the middle of their battle. On the flip side, woman at JFK, you'll never know how much it meant when you handed me your unlimited metro card, for no reason. It works both way.
There are so many more examples of the ways people were extraordinary, though, I don’t want to downplay that. I am more sure now than ever that I have amazing friends and I have met many more amazing people. Strangers, who have remained strangers, were amazing. For someone who isn’t good at asking for help, owing so much to people I’ll never meet is… humbling. Humbling is both knowing that people will help you because they know you and they care, and that people will help someone they don’t know because it is the right thing to do. The overwhelming lesson was really 1) people can be beautiful and 2) the internet is assholes.

Bon Courage*

So they're in the appeal hearing, deciding whether to grant my dad bail, again. I can't believe this has gone on for so long. I can't believe all of this... hasn't worked. For the first ten days or so I wasn't really eating and only kind of sleeping. I didn't get hungry, I didn't get tired. I've never responded to stress that way.
I went back to work last Tuesday, but I'll likely have to take off the end of this week, again. It shouldn't really matter, I'm not "there" when I'm there. Most people don't seem to "get" it, "how's your dad?!?!" Um, in prison in Rwanda, being brought food once a day from the embassy so he is not poisoned, held for doing his job as an attorney.... thanks for asking?
I bought a fax machine because I started needing to send things to international faxes and realized the last thing I need now is to lose my job because I was using county resources to send international, political faxes. I mean, I am actually currently applying for another job with them... it would be bad. But it's strange how little I feel. I got a call that the job that was offered to me was given to someone else. I don't care. I tell media without sufficient emotion in my voice that I am terrified for my dad's safety. And it's true, I am just so tired. Tired of being terrified for two and a half weeks. So now I only cry when I have to write letters to strangers about my feelings, which happens more often than you'd think, or when I think too hard about the prison.
There have been some amazing people who have come out of the woodwork, friends of my dad's from elementary school, former clients, my old friends. I feel let down by every institution. Barack, didn't we say yes we can? Bill, I didn't care about Monica. I defended you against my dad's criticisms, for crying out loud, both of you! I supported you, now I'm s.o.l.?
And I continue to just really miss my dad. There was/is a bat in our house. It's disgusting, we keep thinking it is gone and then 2 days later it reappears. You know who would know what to do? My dad. The worst part of this whole thing is that the one person who would know how to get my dad out... is my dad.
One thing I have learned through this, guessing what he wants and not being able to speak to him, is that I know him very well. "I told you so" is unkind and counterproductive in dealing with the family, but... I'm usually right. I know what he will do, I know what he will say, I know what his coded messages sent out of jail mean. I am my father's daughter- not in all ways- but the same closeness that causes me so much personal pain now is what gives me that insight. Like everything, a blessing and a curse. And now back to waiting for the bail ruling...

*In this new life, I talk to many french speakers and international lawyers. There is something somehow better about bon courage. It makes me feel tougher than "good luck." I guess because courage sounds involved.