A Mother's Darkness

Short story - a mother contemplates the war in Iraq while caring for her young child.

Dear Kristen,

Our country is at war as I begin this, your second book. As you play at nursery school, radio and television announcers speak of our bombing Baghdad. It troubles me - this war - tremendously. As a mother more than anything, for my prayer is the very same as all mothers everywhere, to keep my precious child safe. I want your dreams to consist of fairylands and unicorns, not haunted by death and destruction and evil. How do I help you to make sense of this war? You are too little to understand, and as the battle rages on in a foreign land, I am grateful. We don't talk about the bombs, you and I. While mothers place gas masks on the tiny faces of their children, I turn off the TV. We play a game and gaze up at the stars while war missiles streak across a sky far away.

You're afraid of witches right now, and we do a witch chasing ceremony each night at bedtime. Witches, my darling, I promise always to protect you from. But who will protect the children far away from the demons who haunt an alien land? Demons who themselves were innocent once, at rest in the arms of a mother who loved them."

Love, Mom...

next: Struggles and Snuggles