So Little Light

The only true sunlight came late today. And it lasted only minutes.

I tried to shake off last night’s news but the images of limp, choking babies being hosed down by the adults trying to save their lives stuck with me. The babies were like toys in the news, ornaments for commentary otherwise preoccupied by lies. The babies aren’t lies. They are real.

But they are other people’s babies. It’s important to remember that. It wasn’t our babies who were gassed.

Our babies were shot, mowed down by a man with an assault rifle while they were at school, safe with their teachers.

Last night, we watched as a favorite female news commentator nearly teared up after the film of injured and murdered Syrian children ran.

“She’s really upset,” I said to my husband.

“She has children,” he answered.

Yes, I thought to myself. She has children. Probably around the same age as the children in the news report. She is imagining their dying, thinking about them struggling to breathe, their being in pain. You could almost see it on her face. Every woman I know is feeling that way right now.

Do men feel this way? I ask. I don’t know.

My theory is that even very good men, like many I know, don’t feel the tragedy of babies being gassed like women do. They don’t see themselves weeping. Maybe they do but they just aren’t saying.

I look at the dim, slim light of the afternoon and I wish women ran the world. Just for a while, just long enough to save the babies.