Running the Chicago marathon with mix of gratitude and grief
Tens of thousands of us – mostly white – will run through Chicago streets. We’ll move freely in a city where others are hiding from men with guns. It’s a privilege to move without fear, to run without papers, to take up space without wondering if you’ll be allowed to stay.
The marathon is today.
And I don’t really know how to do this.
How to run, or honestly, how to live through a time like this. Since the start of Operation Midway Blitz, ICE and Border Patrol have torn through Chicago like an occupying force. An elderly man was tackled in an alley. Two landscapers were detained near Foster and Lincoln. A WGN producer was thrown into an unmarked van. Agents rammed a parked car and sped away. Parents and teachers rushed to form human shields around schools so children could still play outside without watching their classmates’ parents get taken.
Some schools went into lockdown, following the same procedures we use for active shooters. Elsewhere across the city, agents shot a father after he dropped off his son at school, shot a woman five times and tried to blame her until body cam footage proved otherwise, pepper-balled a priest in the head while he prayed, and tear-gassed reporters and bystanders.
They turned away faith leaders who tried to deliver communion to detained parishioners. They stormed homes and businesses without warrants, masked and nameless, and seventy-one percent of those taken have no criminal record.
And yet, this morning, tens of thousands of us – mostly white – will run through these same streets. We’ll move freely, cheered on by strangers, in a city where others are hiding from men with guns. It’s a privilege to move without fear, to run without papers, to take up space without wondering if you’ll be allowed to stay.
I’m running to raise money for the Children’s Tumor Foundation, in honor of my son who lives with a rare disease called neurofibromatosis. The research that could change his life has seen its federal funding quietly stripped away. That truth sits heavy too — that we can fund raids and rifles, but not cures.
So I’ll run, not because I know how to make sense of any of this, but because movement is the only thing that feels honest right now. I’ll move through this city with gratitude and grief tangled together, holding space for every person whose freedom, safety, or health has been treated as expendable. That’s life right now, right?
We’re holding armfuls of sand.
