By Feminist Token
There is no sadness in this world that can compare to a mother’s sadness after losing her child. No one can ever understand the gravity of what she’s going through except another mother who has gone through the same.
I have an aunt who lost her son to blood cancer. I remember vividly how she audibly wondered, sobbing: “How am I supposed to see his picture every morning and not go insane?”
And it never becomes easier with time. Forgetting is out of the question. A child’s death is an everlasting, ever-open wound. It is a constant unwelcome reminder of how fickle the pleasures of life are. No laugh will ever feel the same. No joy will come except with an attached staple of deep sorrow.
Eventually death would transform into a slightly more welcome visitor in the eyes of the grieving mother. After all, what could be sweeter than rejoining her child? She experiences this overwhelming sweetness every time she dreams of her child, and she will dream of him over and over and over again, decades after her loss. And every time she will wake up in tears at the grim reality of her loss. Seeing people laughing will make her feel sorry for them, for they know nothing about how harsh life can be and how deeply deceived they are by it.
Imagine then how she would feel if her child was heartlessly named a “civilian casualty” of some extremely “necessary” military operation, performed with “surgical precision”. What’s so “casual” about the death of a child? Who in the world can give themselves the right to dismiss a human being’s death and label it “collateral damage”? And, seriously now, how “precise” can a several-ton bomb really be?
To all these moms around the world we say:
We are incapable of truly appreciating your pain. We beg for your forgiveness because while you grieve alone or perhaps with a few relatives attending your child’s small funeral, your child’s killers are hailed and celebrated here in the West. For you, there are no reporters airing your child’s life story and celebrating it with photos, lamenting on their achievements. No body holds moments of silence and most people don’t even think that they ought to, if you ask them. People love to say that all humans are created equal, but the way they deal with your loss (by not dealing with it at all), clearly reveals a belief that your child’s life is not nearly as important as theirs.
We want you to know that we understand how unfair this is. We hope you know that not all people in America are heartless. You have our promise to try our best to share your grief with the rest of the world. We hope to fulfill this one promise before making any other promises.
Happy Mother’s Day to you, my dear. May God alleviate your sorrow.
Posted by damagecollateral 
