“It’s a difficult thing being part of a big world, isn’t it?” I asked after we watched the President’s remarks after the news of the murder of our Libyan ambassador and the three other Americans killed yesterday’s attack in Benghazi.
“Yeah, it is,” my daughter, Allyson, said.
We had spent a large portion of the day yesterday discussing the September 11th attacks. We looked at the World Trade Center from its birth to its death, we looked at the destruction, the three memorials and the beautiful new building that now stands in lower Manhattan. We watched Tom Hank’s moving documentary, “Boatlift”, which I have shared here. We listened to Billy Collins read “The Names.” We discussed the awful beautiful symbolism of the “X”. (“If you are incapable of signing your name, you ‘made your mark’ with an X,” I told them.) Our scabs were torn off again, and my children’s hearts were too tender to hear the morning’s news and remain indifferent.
Monday, I had assigned the two older kids a paper comparing and contrasting the life of a kid who grew up during the second world war with their own lives as children growing up during the War on Terror. The assignment has proved to be an emotional one for my daughter, and this newest attack sparked her already kindling patriotic and passionate rage. Our discussion at the breakfast table today about the difficulty of determining what the right thing to do is, and what the appropriate national response to this violence should be, and the realization that these are not easy things to discern nearly brought my daughter to tears.
“We need that one god of wars,” Eric said, looking up from his handwriting book.
This is a dude with his head screwed on straight.
As usual, Eric’s timing was perfect: Allyson laughed. “He starts wars, sweetie, not finishes them.” She looked at me, thoughtfully. “Ever notice that there was never a god of peace? We need someone in there who finishes wars. We need someone with their head screwed on straight.”
Eric sat up straight and looked resolute. “My head’s screwed on straight! See?” He smiled and turned his head from side to side to demonstrate his ability to govern rightly. Allyson and I smiled back.
If only…