Music and suffering

The international news is devastating. No words can touch the suffering. A hospital. Both sides blame the other side for the massacre. Trauma on top of trauma. 

Even as we are aware of the horror, we go on with our little lives. What else can we do? Sue finally tested negative after 20 days of Covid. 

Tonight Seth took Cristina on a “date” for her birthday. It was the first dinner date the two of them have had without children in 12 years. 

While they were having dinner, I kept the children at my place. Evan played the first movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata from memory. Bella made her first Christmas card for this year while I made two dinners for them (one vegetarian, the other vegan) and they ate everything. They’ve gone now, it’s a school night. 

I sit with grief and overwhelm. All my Jewish friends are demanding peace and an end of Israeli apartheid, and I hope they will be heard. Jewish Voice for Peace has organized a rally at the office of one of our U.S. Senators on Thursday. After that University students are rallying at their campus, and a group called Free Palestine PDX has another rally at the Senator’s office on Saturday. Perhaps we are unheard, but we do the little we can.

P.S. As I was just clearing away the aftermath of their visit, I saw that the book Evan chose to read while he was here was I'm Not Scared, YOU'RE Scared! by Seth Meyers. These children know much more about what's going on than we realize.