ImPerceptibility

Posts Tagged ‘war’

When she asked me she was standing in front of me and she had a worried look on her face. A lump formed in my throat and I told her that she didn’t have to worry about it.

“But what if I do?” she asked. I realized she was fast approaching the age when mom saying so no longer made it so. I swallowed the lump in my throat and said the only thing I could think of,

“Then you tell them you aren’t going”

“But what if they make me?”

Then I’ll hide you. We’ll move away where they can’t find you. That’s what I told her and I meant every word of it.

She looked at me and I knew she wanted to believe me and my demeanor would decide it for her. I sneered and told her no one was going to mess with my babies. Never! They better not even try. I stomped my foot on the floor for effect.

She nodded yes and the crisis was over…for her…for now.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain. – John Adams

When my uncle went to Iraq I told the girls that George Bush needed some big tough guys to go catch some bad guys. They had no problem with that. He was a big tough guy and he would straighten them out. War was easy then. They were babies. They aren’t babies anymore and we have been sending big tough guys to catch the bad guys for six years. Six years.

When those towers fell I sat in a rocking chair with a toddler in my lap and watched my tears fall on her hair. Today I realized my baby has never know a time when we weren’t fighting the bad guys and I hid my tears in a dish towel as I pretended to wash the dishes. War to her is no different than the sun coming up in the morning. It’s just the way it’s always been. I want it to be different. I want her to have a future. I want her to study art, music, and poetry. I don’t want her standing in my kitchen and worrying that all the big tough guys are getting killed and she’ll have to go and fight in a war. That’s just wrong.