Wednesday, March 26, 2008

What's Important

Most of what I write here is of such little importance in the world that I myself can hardly believe it. And it's not that I'm not aware of what's going on in the world to some degree. I read the newspaper. Sort of. And I listen to NPR all day long, but I think I long ago realized that I am not ever going to be any sort of political beast. There are some issues that I feel I HAVE to take a stand on and they're usually of the sort that involve human-rights and equal rights. But the only time I ever demonstrated was to walk in a huge parade of people down Apalachee Parkway for the ERA and that was in about 1975 and let me just ask you this- has it passed yet?
Nah.
I read things in the paper or hear things on the radio that make me want to scream. It's our right as Americans to take our guns to work? And having them locked in the car is going to make us safer how? They're trying to pass a law to make sure that kids are dressed properly for school? We're making war-talk towards Iran? We can vote on making sure we protect "real" marriage by denying the rights of gay folks to marry?
Oh, come on.
But I never feel like I can do anything about these issues except once in a while peep up and make a little ineffectual speech from this tiny soapbox. I am certainly never going to run for office to try and change anything.
So I live in my little world and I try to do the best I can and I write about shoes and dogs and dogwoods and rain and babies and birth and death and collard greens and our old buddy Jesus- just the stuff I'm thinking about randomly for one reason or another.
But yesterday I got an e-mail from a dear friend whose son has been in Iraq as a Marine for the past six months and it was just the most joyful thing because he's home. He's safe, and as she puts it, with all his fingers and toes, just like when he was born. She sent pictures and I'd love to post one here but haven't asked her permission so I won't but let me just say this- the kid is gorgeous, alive and handsome as a rock star and grinning from ear to ear with his family around him, his gal on his arm. And I am so happy for her that I can't talk about it without crying because for six months this woman, who loves her son as much as any mother on earth has ever loved a son, has had to live with the knowledge that her baby was in jeopardy every minute of every night and day and I'm not sure how you live with that but she did, and she did it with such grace that I am in awe.
Every month on the full moon, she held a gathering for folks who love her and her son and there was always food and something to drink and at one point everyone would gather up under the moon and hold hands and send good thoughts and energy to her boy, all the way across the world. I don't know how I feel about that sort of thing, that sending energy, but I know it felt good to do it and it felt like if nothing else, it was one way to help my friend feel like she was doing everything she could do to protect him.
And she's going to have a rip-roaring party in May for him with all those people who have held him and her in their thoughts for all these months and I plan on being there. It's going to be a big time, a very large time.
I don't support this damn war. I haven't from the very beginning. And of course you always have to follow that up with the statement, "But I support our troops!"
Well, I do. I say let's support them by bringing them home.
Last weekend, one more did come home. He's safe. He's sound. He's enveloped in the love of his family and his friends on a real and physical level. I celebrate that with all my heart and I am joyful.
But even as I write this, there are so many other people, both American and Iraqi, whose lives are in peril because of our presence in a country that was no threat to us and I can't help but think of all the families who are carrying on their lives with a constant, very real sense of fear and apprehension because their sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, are off doing a job that isn't ours to do and because they are in danger doing it. I honor them and the ones who are fighting and I say, BRING THEM HOME.
Bring them all home, dammit.
There's a lot more I could say about this and the idiots who perpetrated the myth of the Iraqi threat but I'm not going to do that now. I'm just going to say that I'm happy as hell that my friend's boy is back. He signed up for the Marines against every wish his mother had, he went to war, he did his job, he's home, and she couldn't be prouder or happier. As are all of us.
And I say Welcome home, Sargent. Welcome HOME.

3 comments:

  1. Not much left to say to all of this except AMEN!!!!!

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  2. Almost as poignant as birth isn't it? Those soldiers coming home. Those boys and girls, with all their fingers and toes. If only their minds could come home unscathed also.

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