Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
5 years
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Beslan disaster. The death of over 300 people, 186 of them children. They died when the Russian military advanced on the school full of hostages and hostage takers (rebels who were protesting the Russian occupation of Chechnya) locked in the school gymnasium without food or water for three days. They died when the bombs that the hostage takers set in the basketball hoops went off. They died in a fury of fire that could only be described as hell. Why is this in any way relevant to me? Why do I feel it necessary to lower my head in mourning for 186 children that I never knew?
My daughter was four months old. The third child born in our family, her older brother not quite four and her sister only two years old. Her mother barely keeping things together. Barely able to cope through night after night of sleeplessness and day after day ridden with the guilt that I could never protect my children enough, that I could never love them enough to grow and be happy and be safe all at the same time. I was on the precipice and this hostage taking, the pain of these children, the suffering of their parents, was the incident that tipped me over the edge. I am fortunate that my husband recognized it before I killed myself and worse before I took my children with me. I am lucky that he has an ally in my mom and together they were able to force me to seek help. And I am lucky that they recognized the edge days before those children were taken hostage and that I had been medicated, though not yet well, for a few days. I was lucky that my husband could see that he needed to be here and not at work. I was lucky. My children were lucky. But the people who sent their children to school one morning in Beslan, Russia: they were not so lucky. Today, I remember them.
And tomorrow I will send my newborn daughter who is now five years old to Kindergarten where I will have to trust that nothing bad will happen to her. That no one will take her hostage in a gymnasium, that no one will break her heart, or take away her innocence. I am scared, just as I was and still am for her older brother and older sister. I am terrified but on the outside I am smiling. Full of reassurance. Full of remembering about how great school is: to learn new things, to meet new people, to play new games. I am giving them all of the best of me so that they can walk into the world sure and confident and feeling positive about the possibilities. But today will almost certainly end in tears for me, tears for my children, and tears for those families who are broken and the survivors who live with their nightmares. Please let me hold onto those tears until my babies are all tucked neatly into their beds. Please don't let them see this fear, this weakness I have, that I can't protect them enough.
My daughter was four months old. The third child born in our family, her older brother not quite four and her sister only two years old. Her mother barely keeping things together. Barely able to cope through night after night of sleeplessness and day after day ridden with the guilt that I could never protect my children enough, that I could never love them enough to grow and be happy and be safe all at the same time. I was on the precipice and this hostage taking, the pain of these children, the suffering of their parents, was the incident that tipped me over the edge. I am fortunate that my husband recognized it before I killed myself and worse before I took my children with me. I am lucky that he has an ally in my mom and together they were able to force me to seek help. And I am lucky that they recognized the edge days before those children were taken hostage and that I had been medicated, though not yet well, for a few days. I was lucky that my husband could see that he needed to be here and not at work. I was lucky. My children were lucky. But the people who sent their children to school one morning in Beslan, Russia: they were not so lucky. Today, I remember them.
And tomorrow I will send my newborn daughter who is now five years old to Kindergarten where I will have to trust that nothing bad will happen to her. That no one will take her hostage in a gymnasium, that no one will break her heart, or take away her innocence. I am scared, just as I was and still am for her older brother and older sister. I am terrified but on the outside I am smiling. Full of reassurance. Full of remembering about how great school is: to learn new things, to meet new people, to play new games. I am giving them all of the best of me so that they can walk into the world sure and confident and feeling positive about the possibilities. But today will almost certainly end in tears for me, tears for my children, and tears for those families who are broken and the survivors who live with their nightmares. Please let me hold onto those tears until my babies are all tucked neatly into their beds. Please don't let them see this fear, this weakness I have, that I can't protect them enough.
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