Why are you sad, grandma?  I didn’t think I was sad.  I must have looked that way.  I was thinking about things.  I realize that was true.  Earlier, when you were at school I was listening to the radio.  A report detailing the lives of  Iraqi women and their families slithered into a sad place deep inside me.  It helped me bring up a little packet of pain that I keep tucked away so that we can play and laugh together.  The little package is bundled and protected to make our life possible.  Inside I hold the Iraqi’s, children in Mogudishu, in Somalia, Pakistan, anywhere where there is daily and relentless hunger, pain, worry and fear.  Lack of safety and death each and everyday hurts so deeply and permanently.  People suffer.  The human condition includes misery and pain for so many.  I cannot bear to carry it around open and exposed, none of us can.  It has to hide away unseen for those privileged; like us.  Those of us who expect safety, food, shelter and freedom.  We are so fortunate, little buddy.  Just lucky that’s all. You and me and your sister and your mom and dad.

When Mia was dying I recall feeling raw each day, hour and every minute.  As if my skin was peeled back. It was my own sadness and also the awareness that each moment there are so many people who live daily with grief, pain and worry about an ill child, a dying child, a terminally ill loved one.  It is too sad to keep that knowing right out front.  I tucked it away.  I told myself to push it away so I could remain standing.  Its like that gets opened up a bit when I really listen to the news.  When I heard the woman talk about her friends, family and her daily life.  I felt it spilling out.  All of it.  But then I was going to see you and I pushed it into a ball and shoved at it.  I thought it was gone.

You saw it.  You knew I’d been visiting a sad place.  Its important to stop in on it now and then.  To remember the suffering and pain of others.  I appreciate our being here with you in a safe and wonderful place.  We might be able to take a few steps to help out the others.  Do something.  Whatever it is.  They are us, too. Maybe speak out for peace, for justice for children all over the world.  Because it serves you.  You and Liza. Its the way the world is.  We hear a message every now and then, really hear it and it calls us to act.  I was thinking about what I would do.  I was in deep thought.  And yes, my face looked sad.  Its good to visit sadness from time to time. Let yourself open that little packet and have a peek.  And do something if you can.  Thank you for asking.  I was just thinking about things.  A little fragile-gma