What a Year it Was – and Not!
The year in repose is quiet, but it wasn’t like that while it lived. I lost friends and family, and many in the public light winked out (not that I think much about them, they have their own friends and family), but it seemed too many for one year; too many people who were speaking words are now speaking volumes when their pictures scuttle across my screen saver and I find myself looking into their eyes and wondering things.
Like ‘where are you now?’ or ‘why so soon?’ or worse things, like ‘why didn’t you wait?’ or ‘you could’ve hung on’ – selfish thoughts and feelings, but that’s what we do when we’re left behind. We miss them, and it’s all about our own feelings. Do they miss the pain? Not likely. Do they miss the shallow representations of obligations? Not bloody likely.
I’m selfish. There are people I miss, and there are people I will always miss. Will I ever forget my daughter? Nope. Not even after so many years. I don’t remember her on her birthday – for me, it’s the day of horror that comes back; the day she left. And my father? I do remember his birthday, but only recently found out it wasn’t even his real birthday – he stole his brother’s birthday so he could enlist even though he was too young! I’ve been doing the ‘hi, happy birthday, dad’ thing on the wrong day for too many years – but I don’t know what his real birthday was! (Those were the days when someone in public office could be bribed to ‘remove’ the real and replace the replica – a permanent record change. My nan did that too, but I wonder how many people notice that – look to see what her age was when her last child was born – I think 8 might be a bit young considering she’d had three previous pregnancies, and all two years apart!)
Anyway, I digress, which is something people do at this time of year – when it’s time to pack it up and forget it after it gets logged and lodged in the attic of memories.
The last year showed us, with fresh blood and pain, just how horrendous war is – it’s not the combatants or the politicians or the borders who suffer, is it? I think we should lay the blame for the pain and suffering and loss of and by the children at the feet of those who continue the spilling of blood: the politicians and allies and . . .
The face of the five year old with white ash from the concrete that was blasted out from under him, the twisted legs of the young girl whose body will never again feel anything, the mother who starved trying to feed the children who ended up stolen by the traffickers and moved on to a hell just as bad as war.
These are only a few of the painful and horrendous moments from the year about to slide away – will it continue next year? Who can stop these things? How many voices are there in the world who care enough to speak out loud enough that the idiots who inflict their views decide it’s bad business to keep doing what they’re doing. There are a lot more of those idiots – they think only in terms of what’s good for them, what makes them richer, bigger, more powerful – but without the people behind them, they too, will one day die and become dust.
I choose to remember the face of the child, I refuse to give power to those who harm the children, I will do all I can to find a way to put the monsters . . . elsewhere, well away from the people they hurt.
