Reading the Parable of the Great Banquet in prison
"Why you even invite us to any of this," asked Richard, "if you’re just gonna humiliate us and throw us out?"
Someone called the cops on Richard Mejia as soon as he was born. As soon as his 15-year-old mother had finished ridding him from her system, she slipped out of the Skagit Valley Hospital and left him there. When the nurse saw the squirming infant she picked up the phone.
Richard could remember sitting in court when the state tried to force his mother to claim him. Many children suffer through watching their parents fight, and many others endure the anxiety of knowing those fights are the result of custody battles. Seated on a wooden bench behind the lawyers, his small feet not yet reaching the floor, Richard looked on as representatives of the state fought with his mother for the opposite reason: neither party wanted him.
Sometimes the state won, and he felt her begrudging hand leading him out the courtroom door. Or he’d be left at other relatives’ houses, where no one seemed to notice or care that a child sat in the corner taking it all in. But just as often, the small boy watched his mother walk out of court without him, her eyes avoiding his.
