This is a Ramadan story about how I ended up crying in an IHOP.

It’s become a tradition in my area for young Muslims to congregate at their nearest 24-hour diner for a carbo-licious meal before the fast begins. This means showing up at the local IHOP around 2 a.m. to finish eating around 3:45 a.m.

This seems like a lot of fun if you are young enough to stay up that late and still have the kind of metabolism to handle this sort of meal. I’m no longer among this demographic. But when my daughter wanted to go with her friends early that Saturday morning, I reluctantly agreed to drive them.

The restaurant was jam-packed with Muslims, mostly teenagers and college students, who seemed oblivious to the time. My eyes were burning, and I was debating whether I could really eat a 1,200 calorie breakfast. (It turns out, I could. Looking at you, spicy poblano omelette.)

I was lucky enough to get my food pretty quickly, having joined a friend who had arrived earlier. But when I headed over to my daughter’s table, I realized their orders had not been taken, and no water had been brought to the table despite nearly an hour wait.

It turns out Cedric, the manager on duty, was the only one serving our entire half of the restaurant. The other waiter had called in. Cedric was running around like a headless chicken. As the clock ticked closer to the end of suhoor time, I was getting more and more anxious about whether the kids would get any food before the fast started.

About 15 minutes to the deadline, the tension was palpable with a roomful of hangry teens. Then the plates started rolling off the order counter -- strawberries and cream, Cinn-a-stack pancakes, hash browns that got doused in hot sauce. Thankfully, everyone got their food and was able to scarf it down in time.

When we were getting up to leave, I realized what an intense situation it is for the waitstaff during these early morning hours of Ramadan, especially if a worker doesn’t make it in. I wondered if the young people knew how important it was to tip the waitstaff well, due to the low base wages in the restaurant industry, and that certain circumstances were beyond the control of the servers. I called Cedric when I got home and thanked him, and said I would come by later with an additional tip.

He said the phone call meant more to him than an extra tip.

I shared my thoughts with a few local Muslim groups about what restaurant staffs deal with during this month. It kicked off a spirited discussion about raising awareness within our community about tipping. Immediately, people said they wanted to contribute toward a small bonus to show our appreciation.

Within 12 hours, people had sent me money via VenMo and Paypal. When I showed up for an iftar at the mosque that evening, women literally shoved cash at me to take for the servers.

After we broke our fast, I drove by the IHOP around 10 p.m. and asked if I could speak to Cedric. He didn’t remember who I was until I reminded him that I had called and was worried about whether he and the staff were tipped appropriately.

Then I handed him two envelopes with nearly $1,000 and said, “This is from the St. Louis Muslim community, to thank you and the waitstaff for feeding us during those 2 a.m. shifts in Ramadan.”

Cedric was stunned. His jaw dropped. His eyes got red and watery. And he said, “Just the phone call was enough. Really, that was enough.”

He said the gift would make a big impression on his staff.

And that, my friends, is how I ended up in tears in the International House of Pancakes.

PSA: Always tip your waitstaff well.

I’ve interviewed countless parents in their worst moments. The anguish of those whose children are abducted is unlike anything I’ve seen as a journalist.

Their eyes reveal the terror of not knowing whether their child is hurt or even alive. This is on top of the oppressive grief I’ve felt around parents who have to bury their children. It’s not knowing that keeps tearing you apart.

Not knowing if your child is being tortured is the worst torture a parent can endure.

That’s precisely why the Trump administration has implemented a new policy of separating parents from their children at the border. This is the message they want to send to desperate people seeking asylum or fleeing to our country: We will take your children. They might end up with human traffickers. You may never see them again. They may end up in a government center or a foster home or “whatever.”

This is what Chief of Staff John Kelly calls a “tough deterrent.”

It’s unspeakably inhumane.

Laura St. John, legal director with The Florence Project in Arizona, told MSNBC host Chris Hayes last week that she has seen a 53-week-old infant in court without a parent. The ACLU’s Lee Gelernt told Hayes of a mother hearing her daughter crying out, “Mommy, Mommy, don’t let them take me away.”

The New York Times reported that from October 2017 to April 2018, 700 children, more than 100 of them younger than 4 years old, had been taken from their parents at the border.

You can only tear children away from their parents if you don’t see these children as truly human.

The Washington Post reports that the consequence of this new “100 percent” prosecution policy for anyone who crosses the border illegally is that children will be separated from their parents as the adults are charged with a crime, even if the adults are seeking asylum and present themselves at official ports of entry. They may have to wait days or longer to find out where their children have been taken.

When you actually talk to parents who have a missing child, you will be haunted by their faces. When I would interview parents marking an anniversary of when their child went missing, I would try to wait until I was back in my car before I broke down crying.

Migrants escaping desperate situations in their home countries do not love their children any less than American parents.

Reports that the Department of Health and Human Services “lost track” of 1,475 unaccompanied migrant children last year are fundamentally misleading. You can lose track of your child in a mall if you get distracted. You don’t “lose track” of that many children at such high risk for human trafficking. That happens through deliberate neglect. Perhaps most of these children are with relatives or adult sponsors looking out for their safety and interests. No one really knows.

Ivanka Trump, who was so moved by images of gassed Syrian children that she personally intervened with her father, needs to speak up now. Pro-lifers who vote singularly on the issue of protecting unborn children need to stand up for these children. Our government is deliberately committing a large-scale human rights violation against the most vulnerable and voiceless.

Republicans and Democrats should set aside partisan differences and simply allow themselves to feel what a parent experiences when their child is taken from them. Allow children to remain with their parents as they go through whatever legal process they face. Traumatized people don’t just go away. Discarded people don’t disappear. We will bear the consequences of policies of cruelty designed to dehumanize and terrorize for generations to come.

Our government wants us to accept horrors done in our name to the most vulnerable and innocent.

But it’s not the victims who lose their humanity when this happens.

We do.

I felt my anger rising while I listened to a panel of students talk to a roomful of education journalists last week.

You may recognize a few of their names: Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg, two student survivors of the shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school in February. They were joined by fellow student activists Alex King of Chicago and Jackson Mittleman of Newtown, Connecticut, all of whom talked about how their personal experiences with gun violence turned them into activists for gun law reforms.

When I’ve watched teenage activists speak on television, I’ve been struck by how articulate and impassioned they are. They seem wise beyond their years. But when I watched them casually chat for an hour, I was taken by their youthful innocence. They teased one another, jumped in to finish each other’s sentences, rambled on while retelling stories and laughed at their own missteps. They sounded just like our kids, like teenagers in any school, any mall, any football game. And they had survived hell.

They described the trauma of massacres and killing that should be unimaginable to our kids.

I sat there seething. We’ve listened to these horror stories for years. It’s violence so obscene that it’s jarring to hear young people sitting around talking about it.

So far this year, more people have been killed at schools than have been killed as deployed members of the U.S. military. Every country has children struggling with mental illness and social isolation. America is the only one where they can easily acquire a weapon that can kill scores of people in minutes.

We are the only country where children are massacred in their schools over and over again, while politicians funded by the NRA do nothing. We all know that some changes would make these massacres less likely -- restrict access to assault-style semi-automatic firearms, close all background-check loopholes, make it easier to keep guns away from those with a violent criminal record or mental health issues, raise the age to 21 for gun buyers and hold gun owners responsible for leaving unsecured weapons around children and teens.

And yet, we haven’t made this a national emergency. Instead, people blame doors and Ritalin. Some argue that stronger laws won’t deter mass shooters. Why have laws at all, then, if people determined to commit crimes will do so anyway?

I listened to these kids, like the nearly 200,000 other American students who have been exposed to gun violence at school, while they begged for their classmates not be forgotten. They pleaded for us to tell their stories.

“You can’t let it fade away. It’s not something that should be insignificant to anyone,” Mittleman said. “We’ve just endured one of the worst things that people endure. You’re going to listen to us, and we’re going to start making change.”

I promised myself that I would keep telling the stories of children we have failed to protect. The next day, a shooter in southeast Texas opened fire on his classmates, killing 10 people.

News reports described the victims in ways that could be familiar to any parent:

Aaron Kyle McLeod, 15, was described as a bright student and a great athlete who enjoyed a good tennis match against his sister. He was a movie buff who liked watching musicals and playing on his PlayStation.

Angelique Ramirez, 15, was part of the youth ministry at Dayspring Church and attended Sunday services with her brother and parents.

Kimberly Vaughan, 14, was an avid reader and a senior Girl Scout who had learned sign language.

Cynthia Tisdale was a substitute teacher. Her husband has a terminal lung disease. They have four children.

Sabika Sheikh, 17, was an exchange student from Pakistan who was planning to return to her family in a few weeks.

Chris Stone, 17, played football and was described by his sister as adventurous and willing to try anything, including parasailing, jet skiing, zip-lining and hiking in the mountains.

Jared Black turned 17 three days before the shooting. He was looking forward to his birthday party on Saturday.

Shana Fisher, 16, was in her art class when she was killed. Her mom has said the shooter kept making advances on her for four months and she repeatedly told him no.

Glenda Ann Perkins was a substitute teacher. Her family described her as an amazing and devoted daughter, wife, mother, grandmother and friend.

Christian Riley Garcia, 15, was killed while blocking an art classroom door to try to protect his classmates from the gunman. His pastor said he was the first to help, loved football and enjoyed being outdoors.

I listened as four young people who also have lost classmates and friends begged us to hear their voices.

I’m keeping my promise.