I turned on my computer today and was met with a picture of a Lebanese man carrying a small child. The child had been killed during an Israeli bombing in Lebanon. I stared at this picture, of this innocent child, now dead. And I wept.
I wondered how many other people wept for this child, for the others who are killed every day in any number of situations, from war to terrorism, to random acts of violence. And I wondered, have you wept for them?
When we see the images on television, where children from other countries are wounded or killed, it is often easy to turn away, to distance ourselves, to not feel. Yet if the same atrocities occur on our own soil, everyone weeps. This breaks my heart. My children are half Turkish. They were born here, are being raised here, and are in all aspects, Americans. But they have a Turkish father. If we lived in Turkey they’d be the same children. They’d have the same sweet faces, innocent personalities, and character traits that they do now. And if, heaven forbid something happened to them, I would feel it just as much as I would here in America.
The point I’m trying to make is that children are children everywhere—across the globe, across the miles. Parents are parents, no matter where they were born, no matter where they reside, no matter what language they speak.
Please, have compassion when you learn of a child’s death or of a parent’s grief. We are all human beings. We all laugh. We all cry. We all suffer. The next time, because sadly there will be a next time, you see a photo or a news broadcast of a parent mourning a child lost, please, take a moment. Pray for them if you pray, or at least keep them in your thoughts. No life is a life wasted. And no witness to suffering should turn their back without considering the life lost.
For my children and for yours, I hope you are safe, healthy, and happy this Sunday. And for those who are not, I hope you someday find peace.