if i had a hammer

i was dutifully fotoshopping and thinking and sketching and reworking this design i’m doing as i overhaul a major pro-migrant org’s website, this was last night, and i hear la waifa from from the next room yelling help, ‘nita’s trapped and something else but i can’t really remember what it was i just knew from the note in her voice that it wasn’t one of the usual things i get called out for and i jump up and run out in the hall and she’s all panicked and at the bathroom door and she tells me lil ‘nita is locked in the bathroom by herself and in all the confusion of the moment i figured out finally that my little girl who is not even two years old yet found her way into the bathroom (which we try to keep shut for related reasons), the dark bathroom, shut the door, and then opened the drawer beneath the sink, which of course, prevents the door from opening inward and is scared in there and clawing under the door and trying to get out and from the tenor of her shrieking we both are thinking that her hand is pinched in the drawer which of course notches up the anxiety tenfold

my first instinct of course is to rush the door and just knock it down which wouldn’t be hard, especially when my heart is pounding and my ears are ringing with the scared cries of both of them but i can’t do that because my daughter is up against the door and i’d probably knock her out or if her hand is stuck, break her arm, or flatten her under the door, so for a moment i am in that state of fright which makes it so hard to think, and i’m backing up and then i’m moving toward the door and then i’m stopping, not sure what to do. this only lasts a moment, tho it feels like forever, i foolishly speak through the door and tell mija to “get away from the door” but of course this is ridiculous, she can’t process this, she is in the grip of fear so i try to calm her down, speaking through the door in as calm and loving a voice i can, but she’s past the point of being reasonable so i’m scanning the door in this stuttery, rushed state and realize i must pull the door frame off toward me, since the door can’t be opened inward, as it’s designed so i turn and say get me a tool, get me something, a screwdriver, something, but la waifa can’t find anything so i jolt into la cocina, leaving mija panicked in the dark and with nobody at the door but only for a moment and i reach up on top of the fridge and grab my trusty and beautiful roofing hammer, one of the hammers left over from the days i did roofing, designed like a tomahawk so if you start falling off the roof you can swing that bad boy and smack a spike into the roof to stop your descent

at this point i’m fully in control of my senses and my pulse because i am past that horror filled moment where everyone is scared and doing nothing but vibrating with fear and feeling helpless under the rain of a little girl’s cries streaming out of a dark room and i begin jamming my hammer into the door frame and yanking bam, bam, bam shred, rip, pull and all the while i’m talking mija down, but she doesn’t really respond to anything except when i start leveraging my hammer behind the door itself and straining with both my shoulders in it and the door begins to flex and come free and light splashes into the little room and i hear my daughter begin to heave with relief as she catches sight of her papi and light and the door coming off its very hinges and finally i rip the entire door free and she rushes out under it and everyone but me is sobbing with relief and her hand wasn’t caught it seems she was just scared and now my door is destroyed, but oh well, mija is safe and man i love my hammer