Solo Mother

sixty years

by christina on May 15th, 2008

My thoughts tonight are with the mothers who lost their homes sixty years ago… and with the mothers who gained a homeland.

I am thinking of my sisters in my heart, the women who claimed me as their own when I lived in Sharjah. Women whose mothers’ mothers hid them down the well when the soldiers came knocking on the door. I think of my friends here in Washington who made their journey to the promised land and came back, full of bright hope for their own peoples’ dreams.

We mothers would do well to teach our children to know the other, to learn well the hearts and minds of those we call our enemies. We should teach our children not to be afraid, but to be open-hearted and curious. We should ourselves extend a hand of forgiveness as often as there is a hand to hold out. Did we give birth to our babies only to lose them to war? Did you have a son so that he could kill another mother’s son, or be killed by one?

Such is the nature of every human conflict. There is a good guy. There is a bad guy. Sometimes, it’s not who’s right who determines which side gets labeled ‘hero’ or ‘villain’… sometimes, it’s simply who won. If we can teach our children to see both sides of that same coin, perhaps we can avoid darker times than the ones that are ahead.

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