The Execution Warrant:

There is no way to sugarcoat it: when my family voted the way they did, they signed what feels like an execution warrant—not for themselves, but for my children.

And no matter how many times they say they love me, I can’t unhear the silence that followed my pleas.

I can’t unsee the doors they closed in my face when I asked them to care. I can’t unknow that their votes placed my sons’ lives in immediate jeopardy.

What they call political preference, I experience as betrayal, abandonment, and an act of violence against my family.

I am the mother of four children. Three of them are the children of an undocumented Mexican man—my co-parent, and my sons’ primary caregiver.

Two of our boys are disabled, living with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a cruel and terminal genetic illness that gradually strips them of their mobility, their independence, and ultimately, their lives.

They are entirely dependent on Medicaid for their medical care, equipment, therapies, and access to specialists. They live in Tennessee, where, as of July 1, 2025, new laws have gone into effect that could result in their father being detained or deported simply for existing.

If that happens—if he is taken—my children will die. That is not drama. That is not a metaphor. That is our reality. Without their father, they have no access to transportation, no one who can lift them, no one who knows the intricate daily needs of their fragile lives. And yet, when I tried to explain this to my family, they told me to pray. They told me to trust God. They told me to “agree to disagree.” And then they voted for the people who made these laws happen.

My mother has always leaned on God—not in the way that offers comfort, but as a shield to avoid responsibility. Every time I was hurting as a child or came to her in distress, she handed me a spiritual bypass instead of love. “Go to God,” she’d say. “Trust God.” But she never actually showed up for me. Never sat with my pain. Never made space for my anger or my fear. She used religion to silence me. And now, when the stakes couldn’t be higher, she does the same thing. She hides behind faith while watching her grandsons’ lives hang in the balance. She tells me she loves me—but then demands that I show up for funerals, weddings, holidays, as if everything is fine. As if my sister's vote, and her silence didn’t help create the very danger we live in.

This is what so many people don’t understand. When someone votes for a person or policy that endangers your children, it’s not a difference of opinion—it’s an erasure. It’s them looking at your life, your struggle, your children, and saying: Not worth it. They don’t want to face that reality, because it would force them to reckon with what they’ve done. So instead, they ask you to move on. To “not make it political.” To come back to the table and pretend none of it happened.

But I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to hold hands with people who handed my children’s lives to politicians who treat them as disposable. I refuse to sing hymns next to people who turned their backs when I begged them to see us. The cruelest thing is not just that they voted this way—but that they want to enjoy the warmth of family gatherings while I sit there with a hollowed-out chest, pretending I don't know what they did.

People like to say love is unconditional, but I no longer believe that. Love, real love, requires action. It requires listening. It requires seeing someone in their full humanity and choosing to stand beside them. My family failed that test. They failed me. They failed my children. And instead of humbling themselves to face that truth, they keep telling me I need to get over it.

But how do you “get over” knowing that the people who raised you would rather keep their political comfort than protect the lives of your sons?

I am done swallowing my voice to keep the peace. There is no peace when your children’s lives are on the line. There is no unity when survival is politicized. I’ve walked through too much fire to go back to pretending that “agreeing to disagree” is anything less than complicity.

So here I am, standing in the ashes of what family was supposed to be. I never wanted this. I wanted connection, support, and love.

But I’ve learned the hardest way that sometimes survival demands we draw lines—not to divide for division’s sake, but to protect what matters most.

This isn’t a grudge. This isn’t revenge. This is a reckoning.

You don’t get to claim love while voting for death, and then shirking and ignoring all accountability by telling me I shouldn't shame you. You CHOSE to vote for your own kin's deaths.

You don’t get to demand forgiveness without confession. And you don’t get to keep pretending that politics are separate from people when the laws you support threaten to kill my children.

I am their mother. And I will never apologize for choosing them over anyone's comfort, including my own family's.