No ceasefire. Grief.

There is no uplift here today because grief is not linear, and I am grieving again.

Perhaps the
deaths
of thousands
of children

(who ever imagined stringing those words together?) 

has triggered this grief for my dead child. 

Palesa said to me in 2010, “In my heart I always believed you would love me, no matter what. And my heart was right, you see? Because you are here. And I am here. And we’re not dead. We’re still loving each other, and I still know your heart.”

Accidentally I found myself reading this blip about her from 2011. How did I navigate to that page? I didn’t do a search. I just somehow landed on it.

Yesterday I spent the whole day writing about her. Today I practiced piano intently, an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon. I made a dental appointment. I did laundry. I went to the grocery store. I held the shock of knowing thousands of children who were alive six weeks ago are dead now, and thousands more grievously injured. Who can hold that in their heart-mind? 

I think of my blip-friends who have lost children. You know who you are. You know grief is not linear.

For the families of thousands of children, it is too damn late for a ceasefire. But maybe, if a ceasefire ever comes, it will spare a few thousand more children. Ceasefire Now.