Mourning

I was awoken as usual by the NPR morning news segment on my clock radio, but as I lie there with one foot still in my last dream, I became aware of a haunting voice describing a nightmare that had changed a woman’s life forever. It was a mother telling the story of the day she was informed that her son had been killed in Iraq. The screaming denial, warning the soldiers to stay away from her door. The heaviness that invaded her body so deeply she could not get off the floor. The searing pain that permanently disfigured her heart. Before my eyes were even open, tears seeped through my lashes and rolled onto my pillow.

Today the 2,000th U.S. soldier has lost their life in a war that I believe has broken our nation and our earth. No one even knows how many equally precious Iraqi lives have been taken.
The grieving stays with me throughout the day and into the evening when I join with other mourners in a candlelit vigil, a prayer for peace. Crawling back in bed that night, the tears still seep through my lashes and roll onto my pillow.