Saturday, November 04, 2006

Waste


Prayer Flags
Originally uploaded by Martina.
The other day at work, a coworker burst into tears announcing that her best friend's son had been killed in Baghdad. He was only 26. And so he joins the tens of thousands of Iraq war dead. And to what end?

Are we freer? Safer? More loved? Have we yet won hearts and minds? Or are we just bloody handed and more feared? More reviled?

I think about this young man's poor family, about all the others like him, and about all the possibilities life holds at 26. How many doctors, scientist, teachers, musicians has the world lost? Would one of them found a cure for cancer? Brokered peace? Won a Nobel prize? How many of them have left children with only a picture in place of a parent?

It makes me angry. It makes me sick. It makes me THINK. It fills me with guilt that I am alive and have the unmitigated gall to bemoan my lot. How can I complain when I live in a quiet, peaceful neighbrohood with a roof over my head and enough food on my plate?

I am alive, filled with warm blood and possibility. A few days ago, he was too. So, what am I waiting for? What are you waiting for?

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