OK, confession time. I’m in love with this “52 in 52” thing for plenty of reasons.
Second confession: Having finished and returned This I Believe, I perused the “new non-fiction” shelf in front of me at the library today for the smallest book I could find. Correct. A book based on the least amount of actual reading I’d have to do. I had the little, blue “good” angel on my right shoulder and the red “bad” devilish guy on my left, both sporting “52 in 52” T-shirts. I took a louie while thinking, “I can’t fall behind, but I’ve got some pretty long books I’d like to read,” and gave into the peer pressure of the challenge’s dark side. After all, I do have a deadline in front of me. Weak, I know. But I found a 7” x 4”, 128 page, pictures on every third page gem. To top it off, kids ranging in age from 6-13 authored it. I think I yelled “Yahtzee!” out loud. I could’ve had this thing knocked out in a half hour if my eyes hadn’t welled up with tears in the first ten pages. Damn it. My plan backfired.
My Hero: Military Kids Write About Their Moms and Dads contains over one hundred letters from kids who describe their military parents as heroes. Because many of our friends serve in the military and have kids, I’ve thought a lot about this book’s premise in the past. I wonder if it’s fair for Aidan Sloan, at age 11, to write, “My dad is my hero because he was my dad…(he) was killed in action in Afghanistan on October 31, 2006 by an IED,” or for Zachari Perry, age 6, to have to reflect on his mom that “Was a very great Airman. She died doing her job. She was a great person.”
Confession three: This is a part of my inner-being with which I’m not comfortable. Sometimes I feel that it’s selfish to have children when you know you may go to war. There, I said it. I’m sure it’ll go over like Costner’s Waterworld, but I don’t have the same sense of duty that tells me my country is more important than my child. I respect and admire the choice to serve in the armed forces, but I cannot relate in any way to leaving my young kids at home to travel across the world – absent from their lives – with the opportunity of being killed at any moment. It’s not part of me; it’s an uncomfortable, missing part of me.
I don’t have the right answers to my squirmy little questions. Defining the ethics of war, or the words “parent,” “duty,” and “hero” turn the best minds upside down, which means mine feels like a Cirque du Soleil performance. Sometimes I feel angry that someone’s mom or dad could leave for war; sometimes I feel awe struck that they serve our country; and most of the time I feel guilty for having the first thought.
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I just finished a book involving war. Not in the sense of soldiers fighting it, but in the sense of innocent people living through it. Barely surviving. Khaled Hosseini is a brilliant story-teller. I silently wept, throat sore in choking back even more tears, as I read page 370--a main character's (her name is Mariam) death by a member of the Taliban. I thought of all the innocent lives, both in this fictional novel and in this--in every--very real war, that have been taken, bodies carelessly tossed aside, buried in unmarked graves.
ReplyDeleteI'm a highlighter and underliner, marking what resonates with some deeper part of me. I was trying to narrow it down to one or two quotes as I read the final pages of this book, but then.... "When they first came back to Kabul, it distressed Laila that she didn't know where the Taliban had buried Mariam. She wished she could visit her grave, sit with her awhile, leave a flower or two. But Laila sees now that it doesn't matter. Mariam is never very far. She is here, in these walls they've re-painted, in the trees they've planted, in the blankets that keep the children warm...."
It got me thinking: perhaps the innocent dead, the brave and courageous dead, buried one on top of the other throughout countless generations, play a much more tangible and significant role in providing hope, in rebuilding what was so heartlessly ripped apart, than any armies or governments or gangs or promise-makers/breakers can possibly generate. And, like my brother, I am torn inside by merely thinking this. Thinking that the dead trump the soldiers who are risking their lives to protect mine and others'.
But, like so much in life, this isn't black and white. Hope comes in many different forms--present and past, tangible and intangible. Like Laila, we are the hope. The ones we've loved, their dreams and hopes of a better future, are taken on by us. We choose to carry them on or let them remain un-realized in those unmarked graves.
I share your deadline struggle. I am relieved to hear you are having the same problem (sorry, it's selfish, I know, but comforting still). I debated putting down Sense and Sensibility to take on a smaller book I could finish by the 21st, to buy myself some extra time for S and S. A book is still a book though, so anything counts.
ReplyDeleteYou're comments on "My Hero" were moving (and I agree with your stance on choosing family over military service). I wish I had something more profound to say, but I do not.