Friday 28 December 2007

Mommy's Going To War

I’m sitting in the Tucson Airport and have just witnessed a family say good-bye to their Iraq bound mother. The family consists of a boy about 10, a little girl about 6 and their father, all of them stocky and all of them blonde. Before the mother left, they all gathered in a huddle and said a prayer. Then, she boarded the plane and the kids and the husband are now standing by the window staring at her plane. The father keeps assuring them that she will be ok. The little girl keeps asking questions about the plane, when will it leave, what’s that guy doing, why can’t she see her mother on it, etc. The boy stands silently with an intensely painful look on his face as he fixates his stare on the aircraft, which holds his mother. Every now and again a tear will roll down his ruddy cheek. Meanwhile, CNN is on the television screen behind them broadcasting the idiot who is responsible for this God forsaken war. No one in the airport can hear what he is saying because the television is muted, but we can all see his monkey-like face that always appears to wear a smug smirk. God, I despise that man, and at this moment that feeling of hatred has magnified so much that I’m seeing red.

And now the plane has taken off, and the family is turning to leave. The little girl walks up to a stranger, shows her a brightly coloured stuffed caterpillar and proudly announces, “My mommy bought this for me, but she had to go away.”

I was blogging about the things I’ve learnt this year, but all of that seems somewhat trivial now.

The Tucson airport doesn’t have free WiFi. As soon as I am connected to the internet, I will post this.

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