this morning when i opened my email, there was a note from a friend of my daughter's, a girl she's known since college. naomi was one of katie's bridesmaids, katie was one of hers. naomi is the reason katie had a shower... if naomi hadn't prompted me to begin planning it two months in advance... i'd have never have pulled it off.
one of naomi's cousins, a young man just my son's age, was killed on sunday by a drunk driver. the boy wasn't drunk... the older person driving the other car was.
naomi included a picture of her cousin dancing at her wedding. i stared at his beautiful face, and all i saw were the faces of my sons. i thought how devastated i would be if anything happened to them. and then i thought how beautiful young men like this are dying every day in iraq. and we have no plans to bring them home.
in ancient rome, i think it was the senator cato who ended every speech - no matter the topic - with the sentence.... "and furthermore, carthage must be destroyed."
from now on, im ending my blog in a similiar way. it is horrible enough that accidents happen, that young lives end in a blink and a bang. it's unconscionable that we should send our sons and our daughters willfully to die. at least the ancient spartans waited til a man had a son before sending him off on a suicide mission. we dont even wait til a kid is legally allowed to drink.
i grieve today for naomi and her family. but i also grieve for all the bright young men and women whose lives have been cut short in the name of an unjust war. my deepest condolences to naomi.
and furthermore... the war must end.
4 comments:
::hands to heart::
When you watch nature shows, you see that almost all animals protect their young. A mother bird will lead preditors away from the nest, even if it costs her life. Never get between a mother bear/ tiger/ lion/ etc and her young. And yet we, the supreme animal, send our young to fight while the old profit. Sometimes I think they are more like guppies, eating their young. What are we thinking?
MOTHERS protect their young. the trouble is that there's all these MEN in charge.
my heart aches at the thought of our children fighting this war... we must end this war
And I feel those in charge have silenced or tried to anyone way the voices of us mothers who are so desparately trying to protect our young.
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