What Gets Left Behind

Jayla Elkins, 3; Shayla Elkins, 5; Kayla Pugh, 6; Layla Pugh, 7; Markaydon Pugh, 10; Sariahh Snow, 11;
Khedarrion Snow, 6; and Braylon Snow, 5.

I have this odd, persistent obsession with things that get left behind.

The un-popped kernels at the bottom of a bowl. Fruit that ripens past its moment and is consigned to the compost bin. The hardened heel of bread that ends up in the trash can. A sock without its partner. A notebook abandoned after a few hopeful pages. A toy along the highway, thrown out of a window.  The last sliver of soap, too small to hold, that slips to the shower drain and dissolves into the sewers.  A pen that runs out of ink mid-sentence and is never picked up again. A bent photograph continuing to fade in the back of a drawer.

Small things, for sure, a microcosm of trivial loss. But I see the same pattern playing out in the macrocosm of our lives. Not with objects, but with the human beings that surround us in our hurried, smartphone obsessed society.

Hana Dehqani, 8; Reza Habashian, 7; Arya Bahadori, 9; Ali Asghar Zaeri, 8; Zahra Bahrami, 7; Ahmad Soltani, 8; Hamed Par-ashegh-nezhad, 7; Mahdis Nazari, 7

I see it in those experiencing homelessness, men and women hidden in plain sight. We rarely engage them as neighbors, having learned to quietly turn away.

I see it in children caught in crossfires of war or mass shootings, their lives crushed before they can discover their gifts or embrace their futures. Their names flicker briefly across our TV screens, then disappear into the churn of the next crisis.

Nevaeh Alyssa Bravo, 10; Jacklyn Cazares, 9; Makenna Lee Elrod, 10; Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10; Eliahna Garcia, 10; Uziyah Garcia, 10; Xavier Lopez, 10; Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10

I see it in those living with mental illness or intellectual disability. Their words don’t always follow our expected patterns and their behavior unsettles us. Instead of drawing closer, we too often step back, increasing their isolation.

I see it in nursing homes, which were a regular haunt of mine during my decades of ministry. Some of the residents received visits from family and friends, but some had been virtually abandoned.

Ahmed al-Zaazou, 4: Ayloul Qaud, 7; Tahani Hafiz Barbakh, 3; Hala Abu Steita, 7; Mohammed Salah, 5;
Samir Tamraz, 1; Joud Duhair, 7

I see it in immigrants who come to our borders seeking refuge. They arrive with stories stitched together by courage and hope, yet many are confined to detention centers, held in a limbo that erodes their time and dignity. Near my home, there is a one of these for-profit facilities euphemistically called the South Texas Family Residential Center. It has been cited for its abysmal conditions.

It strikes me how ordinary all this has become for many of us. Not because it should, but because we have allowed it. Just as no one thinks twice about tossing the uneaten fruit or ignoring the last slice of bread, we have developed subtle, socially reinforced ways to overlook people without fully realizing we are doing it.

It rarely begins with malice. It begins with distance, distraction, and the quiet assumption that someone else will notice, someone else will act, someone else will care. Perhaps, more importantly, it begins with the mind-numbing regularity of violence and the innocence it leaves in its wake.

Do you know why I’ve included the series of names in this post? They are children lost to unspeakable brutality.

The first were shot by their father, Shamar Elkins, in Shreveport, Louisiana on April 19, 2026. The second are a few of more than 100 killed as America bombed a school in the Iranian town of Minab on February 28, 2026. The third is a partial list of those gunned down by 18-year-old Salvador Ramos on May 24, 2022, at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The fourth is just seven (JUST SEVEN!) of the nearly 20,000 children massacred by Israel in its genocidal sweep through Gaza.

There are too many other lists. You know. I know it.

Anyway, I’m going to finish this post because I need to go out and mow our front lawn. It’s gotten kind of long from recent rain. Then tonight I’ll probably watch an inane show on one of my streaming services.

Catch you later.

Nine of the children gunned down in the Robb Elementary School massacre