Guilt/Cookies.

And sometimes your energy and patience and faith in humanity is justallgone.

And you look at a picture like this:

Holiday cookies

And you see those faces, completely full of innocence, and you kinda break a little bit inside.

Because you don’t want those tiny people to be shot in a public venue, in a private home, not anywhere, ever, and not when they’re grownup, either.

You also feel substantial guilt because those faces are growing up in a home with more privilege than any child in any refugee camp right now.

And a small part of you still empathizes with Suzy and that look on her face, the blatant wondering if Nora’s cookie is exactly the same size.

Because after all the everything, you still want to know that your cookie is just as damn big and good as everyone else’s.

There’s guilt for that, too.

But there’s other stuff going on in this picture, too, and you need to hold onto the “other,” especially on a day like this, in a week like this, in a country like this. Always.

At least I do.

And so after you sign petitions and forward timely articles and donatedonatedonate to causes you believe in (and causes you desperately want to believe in), you bake cookies. Because today your kids will get cookies.

There will other days where they won’t get cookies and other days where things just aren’t quite so wonderful for these kids for whom I’d walk through fire (but not take a bullet- I’ve really gotta stop saying that one)…but today is not that day. Not for them, anyhow.

And I’m guiltily, exhaustedly, grateful.

Comments

comments

Speak Your Mind

*