to all people everywhere

I wanted to post this yesterday, but I didn't have the articulation in me until today.

9/11 was an indescribably awful event. I remember being scared. I remember watching the collapse on tv. I remember people with dried blood on their dust-coated, dumb-founded faces. I remember the pentagon a smoldering quadrilateral ruin. in my city. my world. 

but the anniversary of 9/11 is only a solemn and important day of remembrance for me because it happened in my sphere of memory. 

I do not remember world war 2, but both my grandpas were in it. all of my great-uncles were in military service. all of them have their now-faded, browning military portraits with starched shirts and cocked hats and sacred personality beaming out of their eyes, their smiles, the way they square their shoulders. it's hard to believe that none of them died. but 50 million people did. 15 million soldiers, 20 million russians, 6 millions jews, 4 million poles. I can hardly conceptualize 3 thousand people, let alone millions upon millions.

I do not remember the civil war, but it's incredible how close the connections are of living human memory. my mother's grandfather was born at that time, his father was in the war. that's only three generations. the battle of gettysburg alone had in four days almost the same number of casualties as the entire vietnam war.

every human life is precious, every violent, unjust death lamented. but it is hard for me to categorize 9/11 or the war in iraq with the more drastically disastrous events of human history. I cannot feel that americans were wronged without acknowledging millions of rwandans. japanese. jews. chinese. vietnamese. bosnians. afghans. iraqis. and that's just recent history.

all war is horrific. all people living under its shadow robbed of the humanity that they inherently deserve as members of the human race, this world family. humanity is the essence of life. and those who have butchered their own humanity, the perpetrators, have not only obliterated their own, they have unjustly stolen what belongs to others. can you murder without actually taking a life? absolutely.

every young soldier in every war has the dear angelic face of my love. every woman starving to feed her children is my mother. every girl who has lived through the absolute hell of rape is my sister, my best friend. every orphaned child who saw his mother raped or tortured or father beaten or shot is my baby. they are my family and I love them and I can't just sit here for the rest of my life with my food and house and family and education. with my opportunities. "the world" needs lawyers, lobbyists, stock brokers, "professionals". what the world really needs is people. because people love. 

I can't save the world, but I sure as hell am going to try.