I sometimes wish I wasn’t so bothered by the way things are
in the world because it tears me to pieces to watch the suffering of so many
people. Last week I saw the body of that three-year-old Syrian boy washed up on
shore. Later I read that his father, who survived, buried the boy, his other
sibling and his wife and returned to his homeland. He said he was only leaving Syria
so his family could have freedom. He didn’t care what happened to him any
longer and he was going home. Try if you can to imagine what that was like. Try
to imagine burying your loved ones on some deserted beach and then going back
to the hell you had tried to escape.
We in this country have never known this kind of heartache.
We count our calories instead of wondering where are next meal is coming from.
We know if we get sick or hurt people will rush to our aid. We know if
intruders come, the police will be there to protect us. Our homes are palaces
in comparison to the cramped and cold homes these people are leaving behind, to
live in squalor, in tents in some far off land. Imagine packing up tonight and
leaving your neighbors, your friends, your pets, and most of your belongings
and then having no idea where you are going to end up. Not leaving in your warm
car or on a bus or train but trekking across the country side without food or
water carrying your children and the aged and then when you get to the border
being turned back. Talk about the depths of despair.
It is so easy for us to ignore this carnage because all we
have to do is not look. Shut of the television or turn to the baseball game or
the shopping channel. Instead we will go to bed and worry about the stock
market or the Vikings or the traffic on the way to work tomorrow. We will say a
hurried prayer for them if we do anything at all because in reality that’s all
we can do. If our government intervenes we risk more war and this country is
sick of war, as is the rest of the free world. So we will sit tight and let it
play out. This isn’t the first time some ruthless leader sacrificed his country
and his people for his own selfish whims and it won’t be the last time as
nonsensical as that is. We care-- don’t get me wrong. That’s what makes it so
bad.
I go back to the little dead boy on the beach and remember
when I was a firefighter and although there were many deaths over the years the
deaths of children were so egregious because we as guardians are charged with
keeping them safe from harm. They depend on us for that and when we fail them
it is so sad because all they really wanted out of life was a chance to
determine their own fate and we robbed them of that. I cried many times over
the deaths of children in fires and accidents and went home to look in on my
own kids. Standing in their bedroom doors in the dark and watching for their
breathing before I could go back to sleep. Yet those times are just blips on
the radar in the amount of lives being lost in the Middle East. One can only
hope that our creator has a special place for all the little ones who have died
and a hopeless, endless hell for those who exploited them.
Yes, this is the price we as Americans pay, for caring about
the sanctity of life.
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