WordSisters

Category: grief

  • Alex Jeffrey Pretti – January 24, 2026

    The air is heavy in Minneapolis. With anger. Grief. Shock (although we are growing harder to shock). Uncertainty. What will any of us see on the street, at the store, at schools, at clinics? Who will be harmed next, whisked away to undisclosed locations only to be released without explanation or apology? Who else will be beaten or murdered? All to prove that ICE is in charge. 

    Our outrage has grown. So has our resolve. This vicious invasion and desecration of our constitutional rights must not stand. Our resistance takes many forms. We all do what we are able. Perhaps the surge will moderate, but fear will linger for weeks, maybe months, so the need remains. And if ICE leaves Minneapolis, they will go terrorize some other community.

    Please take action:

    Call your representatives. 

    • Insist they restrain ICE, cut their funding.
    • Insist they call out the lies and speak the truth relentlessly. 
    • Insist they demand investigations and accountability for the murders and many instances of excessive illegal force.
    • Insist they address the horrendous conditions inside the detention centers.
    • If your representatives don’t act, vote them out.

    If you’re in Minnesota, join a mutual aid group to get food and supplies to families who are unable to work and pay rent, grocery shop, pick up kids from school, or go about normal life, because whether citizen or not, they could be snatched away. 

    Keep showing up in whatever way is right for you—at protests and vigils. Community support efforts. Bridge sign brigades and school parent groups. Speaking up to friends and family.

    Donate

    A clearinghouse of Minnesota mutual aid groups

    Stand with Minnesota

    ACLU-MN

    I never envisioned the situation people of the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota are in or the way many informal networks have sprung up to support neighbors and fiercely advocate for constitutional rights. Like thousands of others in Minnesota I have been catalyzed to act. These are exceptional times.

  • From Minneapolis

    Renee Nicole Good

    January 7, 2026

    Vietnam Veteran Ron Eastman in answer to why he joined protests at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Fort Snelling, MN, home of the regional immigration court and serving as the regional ICE headquarters: 

    “Number one, my oath compels me. I took an oath in 1969 to defend my country from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. I had to be seen so no one else was killed the way Nicole Renee Good (sic) was killed. Minneapolis is a peaceful place, but ICE has descended… like a storm. They’ve wrecked businesses that have been here for decades, and they have cost children the life of their mother (sic). I could not sit at home…I just had to face the enemy eye-to-eye and say what I had to say.”    (MS NOW Daily, January 10, 2026)

  • Wet Feet and Warm Heart

    To people living in the lake-effect snow areas, Tuesday night’s seven and three-quarters inches of white stuff that landed in Door County is insignificant. Except the weather professionals predicted a dusting. Opening the door at six in the morning to send an old, thirteen-inch-tall dog with arthritis in his hind quarters required intervention by an owner still in cotton knit pajamas and slippers.

    The flip side of this story is that one of the most intensely awesome sunrises distracted attention from noting the snow depth. Bare tree branches etched black lines against nature’s red, orange, yellow, saffron into beauty that could not be painted, photographed, described. Walking along the back windows of the house behind the small dog, my eyes never slipped below the horizon. 

    Sunrise colors seem shorter as the solstice approaches. By the time boots were located and a snow-covered dog rescued, the sky had turned a warm pink then faded into regular daylight. Winter weather arrived surprising me with the gifts of sunrise, snow in the trees, wet pants and bare feet discovering small cold puddles where the furry one shook.

    In a time of deep emotions ranging from the continued happy surprises of family to dread of the immediate political future, from satisfaction in completing a complex writing project to sadness about a relative’s illness, it is easy to not notice what is simple and beautiful. Life’s gifts and losses cannot be tabulated. A stranger’s smile might change an icky morning into a better day. 

    May your holidays bring calm, happiness, and the beauty of a winter’s day even when your feet are cold or wet.