"what is the world coming to?". That's bandied around - I've said it so many times over trivial crap. I keep wanting someone to explain it to me.
I've been watching the news as I said earlier. And I was just reading the BBC news website and I'm moved to tears. Death, murder, destruction. A thousand people killed by fear in Iraq - running to get away from a nonexistant suicide bomber. A woman and her two children (9 months old and 5 years old)who jumped to their deaths in front of a train in London - an apparent suicide. A baby who died in a fire with his mother tied up next to him - she watched him suffocate before being rescued. A young mother stabbed to death with her 2 year old son next to her. A drunk man who died because he let his 7 year old son drive his car at 70mph down the motorway - how will that boy ever cope with that?
Sometimes I understand why people don't want to bring a child into a world like this. On a night like this all I want to do is run into Oscar's bed room, scoop him out of his cot and hide under the bed with him until it all goes away.
Human beings frighten me sometimes. How can we do such horrendous things to eachother? Not only do we cope with natural disasters like the Tsunami or Katrina. We also face more peril from our own species.
I don't know how to express it. I'm sad and scared and frightened by my world this evening.
I keep trying to sing "Wonderful World" to myself in my head but I can't stop thinking about all this death......and so much of it involving children. Is it hitting me harder now because I am a mother? I feel everything so much stronger now I understand the bond between parent and child. I don't understand it all. How could a woman throw herself and her babies in front of a train? How could a man let his own son drive a car? How could you ever recover from watching your own baby die in front of you when you're powerless and helpless? How many children and families have died in America? In Iraq? Anywhere?
It's at times like this I almost wish I did have a faith in God to help me understand this, though I must say, I find it even harder to imagine that belief in a higher being that would allow all this to happen.
Rambling now....I'm just shocked to my core by what I'm reading and hearing today....
2 comments:
I know how you feel...it's all so sad, depressing and frightening. And yes, lately even I have been saying, "Why bother having children? I wouldn't want to bring them up in a world like this".
Unfortunately there are no answers, nor will there ever be.
Trust me Sal: faith in God doesn't really help much as far as understanding WHY these things happen. I could offer you all sorts of theological theories as to why suffering exists...but that's not what you're asking for, is it?
So do this. Go into Oz's room, while he's sleeping. Just look at him, like you probably do all the time. The way his eyes flutter in his sleep, perhaps he smiles. Think of just how AMAZING this sweet boy of yours is...how you think the sun and moon rise and set in his smile. How you live for the sound of his giggle or a sweet smooch. Think about how much you love him.
And then know that God loves him even more. And perhaps God's way of showing the world a bright spot in a very very dark place is the fact that your boy exists. God only knows what he will grow up to do and be. I'm not saying you've given birth to Jesus or anything, but one of my favorite quotes is, "Every child born is proof that God is not yet despairing of man." He keeps offering us hope, in the very forms of these younglings we would give our lives for.
It's not much, I'll grant you. But it's how I sleep at night.
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