Ice Cream Truck
Its October in the Midwest. Fall used to be my favorite season but not so much anymore.
I still love the coziness of hooded sweatshirts and hot coffee cups the warm cold hands.
The days get shorter, and the greyness seems to settle in, nuzzled against the blue sky like a kitten next to its mom.
The somber days spark acknowledgments of all the heavy and sad times I have experienced during this season.
My mind is so much lighter in the summer.
Even though I despise the hot weather, my skin absorbing the suns vitamin D makes up for the lack of serotonin my brain produces.
Summertime brings me back to a simpler time.
As a gen x’er, being a kid was so simple.
Days spent swimming at a friends pool or at the lake. Getting up and getting dressed as fast as you could to go so you could meet up with your friends to plan the days adventure.
It never mattered how hot it was, we still played kickball and tag those days.
We would spend countless hours riding bikes along the river on dirt pathways.
We only came home for bathroom breaks and to hydrate with the garden hose.
On occasion, a water fight would break out as a way to cool down.
Sometimes the sound of the ice cream truck would send us all scrambling home to collect whatever change we could find in the couch cushions or beg our parent for money.
The prospect of having something nice and cold and sweet to lower your body temperature would have you making deals with your older sibling to do the dishes for the week.
The song of the ice cream truck always brought the kids screaming and running and filled the street with laughter. Silence only came after everyone had a cool treat in their hand as they worked to consume everything before it melted away.
One time I recall my dad coming out to buy us something.
I was maybe four years old, messy pigtails from playing all day.
I sat with him deciding between a Creamsicle or a Bomb Pop.
My fathers treat of choice was a reliable Ice Cream Sandwich.
Together, we would sit on the front porch, listening to the cicadas in the trees.
Even though its rarer these days to hear an ice cream truck in our neighborhood, whenever I do hear one, it would bring a smile to my face thinking of those fond memories.
But today, October 30, 2023, in Gaza, I saw two fathers take their children to an ice cream truck.
Only it wasn’t to get them a sweet, cold treat, it was to put their tiny bodies inside to preserve them until they could be buried.
There was no quietness broken up by the cicadas. In fact, there hasn’t been quiet in 23 days. Sirens blare day and night. the missiles keep coming. The buildings keep collapsing. The mothers and fathers howl in agony while holding the bodies of their babies. Children cry out for their mothers and fathers looking for a familiar face to comfort them among the chaos they are in the middle of.
The streets a filled with the cries of children asking the world who will save them. Doctors come across their own family members bodies while trying to save whoever they can. The only silence that comes is to the 47 family blood lines that were obliterated by the bombs. No family stories to tell. No traditions to pass on. No songs to learn and sing together.
I don’t think the sound of the ice cream truck will transport me to the memories of my childhood. Instead, it will be a somber reminder of all the children’s laughter that disappeared over the past couple of months. The vision of two fathers, laying their children wrapped up bodies, with their last, fatherly words of love written on the white cloth will be what I am reminded of. When a death certificate is issued before a birth certificate. The ice cream truck will forever be a constant reminder of when humanity turned on one another and when as a world, we watched a genocide play out before our very eyes.
politicaljunkiemama 