what radicalized you? socio-political essay

Radicalization is a process stirred by experience and unrelenting care. Before Grandma Jane died in 2017 she worked for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, for those who aren't familiar. Her first case was in 1995, the Oklahoma City Bombing, which remains one of the deadliest acts of domestic terrorism in U.S.. history, taking 168 lives in just an instant. When they called her she was there, prepared to be a shoulder to any grieving parent, with a thick-skinned chest and heart of steel, but a heart nonetheless. She wouldn't ask much more than she needed to because she always understood enough. She didn’t need to Imagine her girls in body bags to care about the victims. She didn’t need to cry to prove her empathy, she just did as she promised and offered shelter, handed out blankets, and noted who and what was still missing. Before working for FEMA, she worked picking up after fire accidents, she recalled entering a nursery, with liquifying cribs, charred teddy bears, and mobiles that looked more like dark, stringy spiderwebs. 

She had a garden in the backyard. She grew lemon, apricot, plum, and peach trees dedicated to each of her grandchildren. I was the plum tree, and she watered them every morning as my aunt’s orange tabby, Tessie, sat at the window and watched. She always wore these big, goofy circle-framed glasses, framing her hazel eyes, and I always drew her with bushy white hair, though she was once a brunette when my Mom and her sisters were little. She smelled like lemons and let me and my brother lick the bowl from the mixer when she made brownies. Tessie hid from me and my cousins but always came when she called. She sounded like a strong, classy Irish lady like she could’ve been an opera singer. One year, I drew her a picture with her mouth in the shape of an O singing and dressed for the church choir. They were always funny, often depicting cats, lots of flowers,, and poorly shaped hearts. 

The kitchen was Coral pink, matching her rosy, patchy skin, like the surface of the water in sunlight, looking like cobblestone as she aged but dulled when she got sick. Grandma Jane was an advocate for natural disaster victims,  my aunt advocated for their public accessibility and my mom cared for the families of incarcerated youth with complicated home lives. Jane was broke after divorcing my grandpa so she understood the multifaceted benefits of Sustainability and supporting the small. She not only helped in the process of picking up debris and decay from the aftershock of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, she made friends with the locals and attended funerals just to stand witness to the destruction left by whatever mysterious force decided nature be weaponized. She didn't like to brag, and didn't, like clutter but didn't mind arguing if she thought it could inspire a surprising revelation in self-centered and challenged people.

If Grandma Jane were here today she would be 76, and I Imagine she’d still be out campaigning for local elections however possible, brewing me tea with too much sugar and probably pushing me to study abroad for my Master’s degree. I don't think I ever stood a chance to not become radicalized, I can’t Imagine not caring to any degree other than radically. If she had not died the house would never have been sold, never downgraded to modern millennial grey. I’d still go with her, my mother,, and my aunts to visit her lover’s grave. My Grandpa Ed, who was in a picture holding me the day I was brought home from the hospital, is now framed in my aunt’s house. Now she’s buried beside him, with the many bouquets that have rotted and nourished the soil where they both lie. They were so serious about love, unrelenting care,, and diplomacy, that only sad zombies would consider an unappetizing kind of radical. 

What radicalized me? Maybe I just couldn’t sleep well because I was so disturbed by what they do to the babies in Gaza, which led to calling local senators and asking them to consider just thinking about it. They won’t return my calls, not because I’m too radical but because they’re too busy funding Israeli weapons to keep killing those babies in Gaza and polluting their homes. Indirectly of course, because they can’t seem to touch responsibility with a 10-foot pole. Maybe tomorrow, the radicalized will be acknowledged as founders of a brighter future for the babies that make it when the sun comes up at dawn. As for Grandma, I still miss you. Today I stared at a picture from your obituary for almost 10 minutes straight. Mom was no older than 4, seated on a rocking horse and you held my aunt whose head resembled a white anemone. It was the mid-70s and when you were still living in England. If you were still here I would ask you Am I radical, or do I just care about people?