I want to retell a story from the Hebrew Bible about a woman named Rizpah (2 Samuel 21:1-14).

Rizpah was one of King Saul’s concubines, a commodity for pleasure and procreation. She fulfilled her duties in bearing Saul sons. Boys she carried. Boys she loved.

As a young mother raising sons of status, she had to help them navigate a potential future where their father wouldn’t be king and their family wouldn’t sit on the throne. Rizpah loved her boys fiercely and had great hopes in who they would become, regardless of their uncertain future.

I wonder if Rizpah, after hearing King Saul was killed in battle, began preparing her boys for another ruler who might not look favorably on their family ties. Even knowing how vulnerable their situation was, I bet Rizpah felt her heart stop and lungs cease when she heard both her boys were aggressively forced out of their homes by God’s chosen ruler. I wonder if she watched as bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh were executed alongside their five nephews. I wonder if Rizpah cried out against this injustice by quoting Deuteronomy 24:16, where children were not to be killed for the sins of their parents. This government-sanctioned violent act against innocent people, perceived threats, was what made Rizpah become the unstoppable force of grief screaming for justice.

I can imagine Rizpah gathering the sackcloth of mourning, packing a little food and water, and stumbling up the hill to where her sons where hanging. Public hangings, executions, and even crucifixions were not merely a painful way to die. They were intended to shame and dishonor the family. Those exposed and broken bodies were to warn and intimidate the public to avoid going against the State and religion.

Rizpah travels up the hill alone and stays for seven months. She sets up her sackcloth as a tent to shelter her from the hot sun during the day and as warmth during the cold nights. And she plants herself by their bodies, bearing witness to this injustice and silently demanding their bodies be honored. She stays as rigor mortis sets in, as they bloat in the sun and fluids seep out, pooling under their hanging feet. She protects their bodies from birds during the day and wild animals during the night. She screams and cries and yells as the days turn into weeks and months.

She was alone, but not totally alone. Rizpah had a community who carried food and water to her throughout the seven months she bore witness and demanded justice. And this community, who lived down the hill, never stopped pointing for the people to see Rizpah. To not forget the bodies of those boys left on the hill. To not allow those bodies to become normal, forgettable collateral damage. This community needed to keep turning the rest of the city and nation to Rizpah, to consistently disturb them. To make them look upon the current injustice, and calling for things to be made right because everyone knew a body was never meant to stay hanging overnight. According to cultural tradition and religious requirement, bodies must be buried. (Deut. 21:23)

Rizpah, along with her community, didn’t stop bearing witness and calling for justice to be done. After more months than a mother should bear, King David finally responded. He personally gathered the bones of King Saul, his son Jonathan, and all seven boys and buried them in their family grave.

Rizpah never left her sons’ sides, but she wouldn’t have been able to stay without her community.

I think most of us know Rizpah and the justice she seeks. I’ve seen Rizpah on the nightly news and in my Facebook feed. Sometimes Rizpah looks like the one crying out for the aborted baby or the one learning her child was sexually abused by a man of God. Sometimes Rizpah looks like the black mother, numb from grief because a person sworn to protect and serve just shot her child. Sometimes Rizpah looks like a mother, so tired of another hashtag, praying for strength to keep calling for justice and desperate for a committed community.

A boy was murdered in our town 22 months ago and a mother has been crying out for justice since. She’s been bearing witness and making a ruckus for justice to be done, never leaving her son’s side. Most of us in Arcata have the privilege of ignoring the pain she holds or forgetting it happened or even asking her to move on.

But we, her community, the people down the hill, won’t let you forget. Here we are, showing up at the bottom of the hill and pointing the rest of our town and nation to see this grieving mother still demanding justice.

Have you forgotten? Do you remember his name?

May we stand beside Charmaine Lawson. May we speak up when her voice breaks and her heart hurts. May we keep pointing our friends, family, and city officials to see her. And may we seek Justice for Josiah together.

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Inspired by Austin Channing Brown’s work on Rizpah.