Praise for you who wakes up drowsy, exhausted, full of love. Praise for you who feeds and cleans, listens and creates wonder, and can still go to sleep at night. Praise for you who laugh with children and wait until they tie their own shoes, who change the diapers and teach them to say "I'm sorry." Praise to you who cries at night from stress, who barely gets through the day without a toke or a drink or a smoke. Praise for your struggle, your never-giving-up-ness. Praise for you whose breasts ache from nursing, whose hands are tired of washing, whose wrists have grown crampy and numb from holding the bodies of children, of mothers, of people. Praise for you who notices the frown, who stops to smile, who asks and listens to how you are, who stops and laughs with us. Praise for you who bends down time and again to pick her up, to put him down, to clean her face, to hold his hand. Praise for you for you are not praised. You who are ignored, who are paid substandard wages, who are looked down upon, chided for bringing your stroller, or exposing your breast to nurse, or walked more slowly to open the door for him, for her, for people. You who have never named your labor, who have never heard a thank-you, have never even known your sacrifice. You who have breathed in fumes and smoke and grown accustomed, who have sacrificed your own well-being so a child could do better, who have sacrificed your position, your "reputation" so a person could be more free. You who have not played according to the rules, who have spoken out and been judged for it, who have been looked down upon. You are the caretakers, the preservers of hope, the models, the new path. You are. You are. And it is seen. J.E.O. 12.3.16
Image from CMRJB Workers United. https://www.facebook.com/CMRJBWorkersUnited/