Why do all hospital rooms have the same look and feel? The exact same layout, lighting, temperature, and sounds form an uninspired healthcare feng shui designed (seemingly) by the unimaginative and soulless, where each room lives on the outskirts of a nurses’ station, just within earshot of the muffled voices of hospital employees and concerned family members.
Over time, patients and their visitors accept (as elements of the hospital room lexicon) the beeps and pings that gently interrupt their conversation.
After an extended quiet stretch in room 303, a 7-year-old girl donned in black leggings, and a pale pink dress speaks.
“Are you afraid of dying, Gramma?”
Surprised by the question, the young girl’s mother, who sits at the foot of the bed, looks up from the book she’s been pretending to read, purses her lips, and shakes her head at her daughter.
The old woman in the hospital bed looks at her granddaughter lovingly – “No, honey, I’m not,” opening the door to conversation.
“I’d definitely be afraid,” the seven-year-old girl says with certainty.
The young girl continues: “Why aren’t you afraid, Grandma?”
“I’m not afraid because I don’t believe there’s anything to be afraid of.”
“Hmm,” the granddaughter says with a hint of admiration.
“What do you think heaven will be like?” the granddaughter continues.
“Heaven? Oh goodness, honey! I don’t believe in heaven.”
The dying woman looks past her granddaughter to her disapproving daughter.
“Mom, please don’t,” the daughter says with a weighty resignation – hoping to close the door on the conversation before it seizes all the oxygen in the room.
“What? I’m just being honest with my little Butternut,” the grandma said, smiling warmly at the girl.
The granddaughter is intrigued by how her question animates the adults in the room. Suddenly, she feels elevated and important. Her mom’s tone tells her she is on the cusp of something bigger than her question.
She looks at them both in a silent plea for answers.
The grandmother speaks.
“Come close, Butternut.”
The granddaughter scooches her chair closer and grabs her grandma’s hand instinctively, at which point the grandma continues:
“I’ve lived a long and happy life.”
“My time is coming to an end.”
Pointing at her own face, the grandma says “I’ve been lucky enough to earn all these wrinkles and crinkles (the granddaughter chuckles at the rhyme).
“I expect that when I die, I won’t feel a thing – I’ll simply stop being.”
The grandma looks at her granddaughter intently and says:
“I don’t want you to fret about me! Do you understand?
I’ll live in your memory and your mom’s memory for a while, which is good enough for me – living in your memory is all the heaven I need.”
The girl keeps her head bowed, holds back her tears, and fiddles with the ties on the back of her Barbie doll’s bikini — all while trying to conceptualize human mortality and the consequence of loss heaped on her by her dying grandmother.
The daughter clears her throat and speaks quietly to the girl.
“What Grandma is saying, honey, is that she’ll be fine even after she’s gone – so we don’t need to worry about her.”
The child looks at her mom then at her grandmother for confirmation.
“Well, not exactly,” the grandmother responds to her daughter’s attempt at shielding the granddaughter from the truth.
“What I’m saying, Butternut, is when all those dings and beeps finally fall silent (pointing to the equipment mounted on the wall above the bed), so will I.
That doesn’t mean I’ll be fine – it simply means I’ll be gone – and I’m okay with that.”
“Mom, she’s 7 for God’s Sake! She doesn’t need to hear this.”
With a laser-like focus that belies her age and terminal condition, the grandmother turns towards her daughter’s words – her slate-grey eyes burn with newfound purpose.
“Well, I think she does need to hear it – and even if she doesn’t, I need to say it.”
The grandmother continues to speak in the direction of her daughter.
“When you’re dying, there’s nothing tangible to hold on to. Instead, there’s a constant and continuous feeling of being adrift until eventually you relinquish control to doctors, nurses, epidemiologists, and every other soul that hums about this godforsaken place on a daily basis.”
The grandma continues:
“The two things I still control today are my thoughts and feelings – and the last thing I want is to lie to my granddaughter about my thoughts and feelings.”
“I don’t want liars’ guilt knocking around my noggin as I drift off to my final sleep.“
“I want to be honest, strong, and a fucking font of truth to my granddaughter.”
“Grandma! You said a bad word!”
“Ha!” the grandma laughs and smiles at her granddaughter and says, “There’s no such thing as a bad word, Butternut!”
The grandma leans back in bed, looks at her granddaughter and speaks.
Maggie discovered her husband at the bottom of the basement stairs – his body contorted, eyes wide open and empty of light.
She remembered hearing a tumble and thud in the middle of the night, waking momentarily before dismissing the sound as a fleeting element of a fading dream.
So, Maggie went back to sleep.
She was so startled by her early morning discovery she almost fell down the stairs herself. Now she stood frozen in the doorframe, unsure what to do.
She nervously fumbled around the pockets of her bathrobe for her phone while staring down at the strangely twisted body of the man she had spent 30 (mostly good) years with.
The gravity of her loss rose from the soles of her feet, and she felt rubber-legged and lightheaded – she wretched suddenly and grabbed the railing to steady herself.
After a few deep breaths, she swiped the security code into her cell, opened the phone app, and stared absently at the number pad.
“Fuck” she whispered to herself.
Who to call?
If there had been any signs of life, this wouldn’t be a question. But the 911 emergency had passed — her husband was dead.
She dialed her son – but with no idea what she would say when he picked up, she panicked and hung up the phone on the third ring.
“FUUUUCK!” she screamed, her voice so loud she reflexively looked down at her husband to see if the sheer amplification had snapped him out of death. It hadn’t. However, her scream woke her dog, Molly, who she heard hopping off the bed upstairs.
Her phone rings.
It’s her son.
The confluence of Molly making her way down the stairs, her dead husband in the basement, and her son on the end of her ringing phone cause Maggie to burst out crying.
“Come on, Maggie, pull yourself together,” she says tersely before answering the phone.
“Mom, is everything OK?”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m sorry I hung up on you!” now sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, what’s wrong!!??”
“Your father fell down the stairs. I think he’s dead.”
She knew he was dead.
She wasn’t sure why she said, “I think he’s dead” – maybe she was trying to protect her son from what she was feeling – alone and adrift.
Was a fifteen-minute drive with false hope better than one with the hard truth?
There was a prolonged silence, followed by “I’m on my way.”
She still hasn’t found the courage to go to him. She’s still at the top of the stairs, and he’s on the cold basement floor.
Dotingly, Molly sits at her feet, wagging her tail softly, looking up at her and seemingly wondering, “Why are we standing in the doorway?”
She pats Molly gently and says sadly, “Daddy’s gone.”
Her moment with Molly evaporates in the sudden crunch of car tires on a gravel driveway – a car door slams, followed by an urgent knock on the front door.
She glances again at her husband before heading to the living room with Molly in tow.
“He’s never going to leave her,” she whispers into the mirror before peeking from the bathroom to the bed, the rise and fall of tangled bedsheets, and the messy truth of her life.
Three years of skulking around hotels and motels in towns miles from where she and her dirty little secret lived their other life.
The sex was great. There was no denying that. But three years in, Maggie wonders, “Would it be so great without all the secrecy – without the element of danger”?
“Probably not,” she says to herself.
“Fuck it – I’m done.”
She packs her overnight bag, gets in her car, and drives.
She never spoke to her married lover, landlord, best friend, or roommate. She drove west for three days – before settling in Jacksboro, New Mexico.
A fresh start.
A few months later, she landed a job as a technical writer at zDeck, a fast-growing company specializing in patio design and architecture.
John graduated in 1987 with a Bachelor’s degree from New Mexico State.
He floundered in the sciences for a few years before settling on an English major – primarily because he enjoyed the classes. From American Short Stories to British Romanticism, he connected with the content – it prodded him to think and broadened his perspective on life and human nature.
Maybe all those stories and poems (and the characters that inhabited them) were a welcome distraction from his life.
“A degree in the humanities isn’t skills-based,” he recollects the words from his bemoaning father.
“It doesn’t give you the tools you need to make money!”
“You’re right, Dad, it doesn’t,” John remembers cavalierly responding to his father’s concern.
“But it’ll help me understand the human condition and navigate life’s absurdities- and I think that’s what I need right now.”
John rarely thought ahead. Not because he didn’t see the value, but because he never acquired that skill – he never observed his parent’s “planning” when he was growing up, the consequence of a disengaged alcoholic father and a mother struggling to keep herself and her family afloat.
In John’s childhood, there was no long view. Growing up was day-to-day.
After graduating, John fell into technical writing, “like a blind man into a quicksand pit,” he warned his son years later when counseling him on the importance of “having a plan.”
In the late 80s and early 90s, technical writing wasn’t specialized (or all that technical)– if you could write, you were a candidate – and John could write.
He was bright, creative, quick-witted, and had an innate way with words.
Everyone who came to know John liked him – almost immediately, it seemed.
Maggie remembers when she met John at zDeck in 1989.
It was John’s second day on the job. Maggie sat at the breakroom table, daydreaming over a cup of coffee and playing with a sugar packet, when he walked in – lunch bag in hand – a nervous smile on a handsome face.
“Hey,” she nodded at him.
He responded kindly with a “Good morning,” opened the refrigerator, and deposited his lunch.
“I’m Maggie, by the way.”
“Hi Maggie-by-the-way, I’m John.”
She smiled, bit her lower lip playfully, and thought, “Hmm, this could be fun.”
Maggie, casting the sugar packet aside, “So, how do you like zDeck so far?”
John, happy to engage:
“So far so good. I’m still learning the ropes. They have me in training this week and next.”
Maggie, smiling: “Ahh… Inkslinger training . . . I remember it well.”
John, somewhat surprised:
“You’re a writer? Tell me – and be honest – what am I in for?”
Maggie, without missing a beat:
“Humiliation, mostly.”
“Ha!” John responded with delight at both Maggie’s response and the natural rhythm of their conversation.
Maggie pushes up from her chair and starts towards the breakroom door. She feels his gaze on her back, looks over her shoulder, and says, “Good luck with training; I’ll see you around.”
“See you around, Maggie-by-the-Way.”
In 3 years, they were married.
Thirty years later, John still referred to his wife endearingly as Maggie-By-the-Way.
Maggie opens the door. Her son stands and stares for a second.
“Where is he?”
Maggie turns towards the open door leading to the basement.
Her son brushes past her and walks tentatively towards the lit doorway – slowing his pace considerably as he gets closer.
When he reaches the doorway, he leans in, bends, turns his shoulders slightly, and peers down the stairs.
Molly remains at Maggie’s feet, quizzically looking across the room at the son and then back up at Maggie, wondering what was happening.
“Did you call 911?” the son asks solemnly – never looking back towards his mother, eyes red and fixed on his dead father.
“No, I haven’t.”
The son takes the cell phone from his coat pocket and taps the screen.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“My father fell down the stairs – I think he’s dead.”
“Is he breathing?”
“No.
It looks like he broke his neck” – the son begins to cry.
“He’s dead. Can you please send someone.”
John feels the pervasive drop in temperature. It envelops him and pries him from his sleep.
The pilot light’s out again, he thinks to himself.
He sits up and looks over at Maggie – dead to the world. John muses to himself, “She could sleep through a hurricane (and an ice age, apparently),” and smiles in her direction.
He slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed, puts his feet on the cold hardwood floor, and stands.
Molly is tucked cozily in the crook of Maggie’s legs. Sleepy-eyed and content, she raises her head slightly, looks at him and wags her tail quietly.
“I got this girl; you go back to sleep,” John says to her as he heads downstairs.
The light above the stove dimly lights the kitchen. John opens the junk drawer and pushes aside pens and pencils, loose batteries, and an opened pack of note cards before finally finding the matches. He suddenly feels lightheaded and grabs onto the kitchen counter.
“Christ,” he says to himself.
He’s been having these spells for a few weeks now but puts off calling his doctor.
The dizziness passes; John stuffs the matches in his pajama pocket, walks to the door that leads to the basement, opens it, and takes a step.
John’s second dizzy spell inhabits his last vestige of conscious thought. It’s followed by the sensation of twisting and falling, momentary weightlessness, and a sharp crack of pain when the base of his neck meets the unforgiving edge of the fifth step on the basement stairs.
A bright burst of white light and a buzzing electric sound is followed immediately by complete blackness.
And just like that, John, sixty-two years old and newly retired, was gone.
The paramedics – a young man and a woman – arrive 5 minutes after the 911 call.
Maggie meets them at the front door.
“Hello, mam. Did you call 911?”
“My son called – but it’s my husband – he’s fallen – he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs.”
Maggie becomes lightheaded at the words, “he’s at the bottom of the basement stairs,” – and the paramedic reaches out to prevent her from falling.
Years later, Maggie would look back and wonder how eight words strung together could illicit such a strong physiological response.
“OK, mam, come sit with me.”
The woman paramedic slow-walks Maggie to the sofa while the other heads across the living room to the basement stairs, stopping suddenly at the doorway (like there’s an invisible forcefield) before proceeding to the basement.
About 30 seconds later, he’s on his phone – his words float up to the living room:
“Yeah, it’s Bill – we need the coroner at 77 Merton – yeah, looks like a fall – yes – male, about sixty, I think – Yes, his wife and son. Got it – OK – Thanks.”
Maggie and her son are still on the sofa when the paramedic comes up from the basement – they look at him, and he meets their eyes – he’s tight-lipped and pale. Maggie almost feels sorry for him – she wants to tell him, “It’s OK, you don’t need to say the words – we know he’s dead,” but she lets him speak.
“I’m sorry, mam, your husband is deceased. The coroner is being notified. He should be here shortly.” – this time, Maggie does not become lightheaded at the words – she feels her spine stiffen, and a sustained pulse of energy courses through her – emanating from the center of her chest to her limbs.
Maggie turns to her son, who suddenly seems wrecked and catatonic – like he’s been hit by the “everything-all-at-once” train. She slides towards her son, puts her arm around him, and pulls him close – he melts into her – he feels both heavy and empty on her chest.
The coroner arrives at 7:00 AM. By now, neighbors are waking to the flashing lights of the rescue squad and several official-looking vehicles parked haphazardly in front of 77 Merton Road.
Maggie gazes out her living room window towards her best friend Gail Green’s house.
Gail stands on her front porch, swaying while holding her coffee mug with both hands, worry draped on her face. Maggie wants to text her, but she’s unsure if that would be a breach of protocol.
After several minutes, Gail turns slowly and heads back into her house.
The coroner has been with John for nearly 20 minutes, and Maggie starts to feel anxious – then the male paramedic, who has been with the coroner, comes up the stairs.
“Mam, the coroner wants to know if you want a few minutes with your husband before we take him to County General.”
Maggie isn’t sure how to respond. She looks to her son for advice, and he nods approvingly.
“Can my son come with me?”
Maggie and her son walk down to the basement – John’s body is no longer on the floor. Instead, he’s tucked into a thick plastic body bag on a gurney, with only his chest and head exposed.
Maggie leans over and kisses John. His forehead feels like a cold stone on her lips. Maggie’s son stands behind her – head bowed – tears streaming down his cheeks.
Maggie turns to the coroner and asks if she can have the wedding band from her husband’s finger before they take him away.
“Of course. Can you give me a minute alone with your husband?”
Maggie and her son walk to the other side of the basement where John kept his workshop.
There’s an unfinished project – a repair to the rocking chair that John gave Maggie before the birth of their son – the entire workshop is infused with the comforting smell of wood shavings and varnish, which feels inherently nostalgic in John’s absence.
Maggie takes her index finger and traces the floral engraving on the rocking chair’s headpiece – the day’s events wash over her as she slips between a daydream and a trance engulfed in sepia-toned memories of her and John, young and vibrant, asleep in their bed, arguing across the kitchen table, crying while holding one another and laughing hysterically, at what she’s not sure. The memories play like a tattered and jittery home movie in her head.
With Maggie and her son distracted, the coroner reaches into the body bag and carefully extracts John’s arm, resting it respectfully across his chest. He proceeds to remove the wedding band. It takes some effort, as rigor has set in. With the ring off, the coroner gently twists John’s wrist so that his palm is facing upward – his arm still resting on his chest. He places the wedding band on John’s palm so that it looks like John is presenting it as an offering.
“Mam, you can come back now.”
Maggie and her son stand over John silently.
Maggie looks at the coroner with deep appreciation for his kindness – he nods and steps away from the gurney, disappearing ghostlike from the grieving wife and son.
Maggie gently takes the band from her husband’s hand, holds it close to her face, and reads the inscription.
Enjoying every day with Maggie-By-The-Way – 1992
She closes her hand tightly around the ring and smiles.
It was 5:00 AM when she found his contorted body at the bottom of the basement stairs – his eyes wide open and empty of light.
She recollects hearing a tumble and thud in the middle of the night, waking momentarily before dismissing the sound as a fleeting element of a fading dream.
So, she went back to sleep.
She was so startled upon discovering him that she almost fell herself.
Now she stood frozen in the doorframe, unsure what to do.
This situation was a first.
There was nothing from her past to draw upon that might guide her.
She fumbled around the pockets of her bathrobe for her phone while staring down at the crumpled and twisted body of the man she had spent 50 (mostly good) years with.
The gravity of her loss began to rise from within, and she felt rubber-legged and light-headed. She grabbed the railing of the stairs to steady herself.
She entered the security code for her cell, opened the phone app, and stared blankly at the number pad.
“Fuck” she whispered to herself.
Who to call?
If there had been any signs of life, this wouldn’t be a question.
But the 911 emergency had passed — her husband was dead.
She dialed her son, with no idea what she would say when he picked up, so she panicked on the third ring and hung up the phone.
“FUUUUCK!” she screamed, her voice so loud she reflexively looked down at her husband, thinking the sheer amplification of sound might snap him out of his death, which it did not. However, she did wake her dog, Molly, who now stirs upstairs.
Her phone rings. It’s her son. She bursts out crying as she hears Moly coming down from upstairs.
“Pull yourself together,” she commanded before answering the phone on the tenth ring.
“Mom, is everything okay?”
“No. It’s not. I’m sorry I hung up on you!” sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, what’s wrong!!??”
Your father fell down the stairs. I think he’s dead.
She knew he was dead.
She wasn’t sure why she said, “I think he’s dead” – maybe she was trying to protect her son from the devastation she was feeling? Was a fifteen-minute drive with false hope better than one with the hard truth?
There was a prolonged silence, followed by “I’m on my way.”
She still hasn’t found the courage to go to him. She’s still at the top of the stairs, and he’s on the cold basement floor.
Molly sits at her feet, wagging her tail, looking up at her and wondering, “What are we doing standing in the doorway?
She pats Molly gently on her head and says sadly, “Daddy’s gone.” Her moment with Molly is abruptly interrupted by the crunch of car tires on the gravel driveway.
She hears the car door slam, followed by a rapid knock on the front door.
She glances again at her husband before heading to the living room with Molly in tow.
He stared at this lump of white letters on a black screen for nearly twenty minutes.
Then he began to breathe life into it, shuffling words intently, whispering them to himself, listening to how they sounded until he found the perfect cadence—fifty disparate words, strung like bulbs on an idea wire.
We hear this whenever Muslim extremists go on a rampage.
And though I agree the majority of Muslims are peaceful, if the average Muslim had to choose between living with a peaceful atheist like me or a fanatical Islamist, I think they’d choose the latter, because with the latter they share a religion.
Religion holds people together, while also dividing us from one another.
It lumps people into like-minded groups, where each group believes their God, their beliefs, their scripture, and their golden ticket to the afterlife is the one and only. It fosters an “us versus them” mentality, and when religion controls the narrative of who we are, we lose sight of our shared humanity.
When infused with fanaticism, religion celebrates flying planes into buildings and forcing families from their bulldozed homes as righteous acts.
When we view people through the prism of religion, we don’t see them as individuals. Instead, we see Jews, Muslims, or Christians and the preconceived notions those labels have to us. Categorization leads to dehumanization and dehumanization softens up the conditions for war and hate.
Fanatical groups like Hamas, ISIS, al-Qaeda, MAGA Republicans, and the ultra-orthodox Jews living in the West Bank see religion and scripture as a final arbiter or cure-all to all their woes and view those who don’t adhere to their beliefs as “less than” themselves.
Religion doesn’t only affect the religious. For example, religious-borne fear affects the moral compass of the religiously-agnostic when it comes to the war in Gaza. The fear of religious extremism is why we give a wide berth to Israeli vengeance. Our fear of Hamas and what they represent runs so deep that we give the IDF leeway in terms of their tactics and rationalize civilian casualties.
Religious extremism never serves the greater good. Clearly, Gazans in Palestine would be better off if they could get out from under the thumb of Hamas.
I want Hamas to be swept into the dustbin of history.
But at what cost? I guess that’s the question.
At what cost?
Last week, I saw a video post on LinkedIn that showed ghastly footage of bloody Palestinian children writhing in pain on a hospital floor in Gaza. It was horrific and sickening (and has since been removed). Many of the comments to that post referenced Allah and retribution, which filled me with despair. Those comments reinforce my belief that humans are slaves to what they’re taught in churches, synagogues, and mosques.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that people find peace, comfort, and a sense of community in religion — I understand the positive aspects of religion.
But I also see the negative.
Religious people get agitated at atheists like me who rail against the dangers of religion. In contrast, we atheists get frustrated that religious people can’t seem to separate the bliss they achieve from religion individually from the negative shit that comes out of a religious group dynamic.
Freedom from religion – the right of a person to have no religion in their life, opens the door to humanistic identity.
I was raised a catholic. For years, growing up, I went to church and catechism every Sunday, where I was lectured to by priests and nuns. Thankfully, I lived in a country that supports freedom from religion and free thought — where, over time, I could compare (without fear of retribution) what the priest and nuns were telling me to what I saw and observed in the world and what I learned of my own volition. This led to a sense of self not based on religious dogma and doctrine but rather on my personal experience interacting with the world and the people in it.
If I had been born and raised in Iran or Iraq, my experience would have been radically different. I would have been forced to adhere to the religious rules of the state or suffer the consequences of disobedience.
As an atheist, I could walk the streets of Telavi freely without having to look over my shoulder in fear for my safety. I’m not sure I can say the same about walking streets controlled by Islamist fundamentalists – who, if I made an off-color remark about their prophet, would separate me from my head without batting an eye – and feel justified in doing so.
America’s greatest gift to its citizens is freedom from religion. But lately, I fear we’re in danger of losing that gift and becoming an authoritarian theocratic state ourselves.
Just look at the speech that Elise Stephanic gave when nominating Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House. That speech included multiple references to God and scripture. And Johnson himself has informed American’s the way to learn how he feels about any issue is to read the Bible. ‘That’s my worldview, that’s what I believe.‘
Since Mike Johnson’s nomination to the speakership, we’ve seen gross outward expressions of religiosity on the house floor – a clear slap in the face to the separation of church and state.
Imagine the outcry if a Muslim speaker or representative busted out a prayer rug on the house floor to pray.
The increase of religiosity in the Republican party should be a huge red flag to Americans who cherish living in a secular and pluralistic society.
The GOP’s embrace of Christianity as a national religion is a genuine threat to the American way of life.
I’m not naive. I know religion isn’t going anywhere, though I am heartened that among American adults, secular humanism and postmodernism are growing in influence in our culture.
Let’s judge religions by their ideas.
The notion that criticizing a religion is unacceptable because it might “offend people” is what allows dangerous movements within generally peaceful religions to spread and radicalize individuals.
We need to voice our objections loudly against any religion that promotes divisiveness, intolerance, or hate, because these are bad ideas for humanity.
Israel says there is a safe zone for civilians in the south of Gaza.
Israel suggests that Hamas is preventing civilians from going to that safe zone because separating Gazan civilians from Hamas means fewer civilian casualties, which is terrible for Hamas because (according to Israel) Hamas relies on civilian casualties as fodder for their propaganda machine.
So, who do we believe?
How do we, the ones watching this conflict from the outside, get to the truth to form an opinion?
It is hard to trust the controlling parties on either end of this conflict, and in that scenario, everyone in the middle gets obliterated.
And let’s not forget that our struggle for truthfulness is nothing compared to what Gazan civilians are facing hourly. Gazans are struggling to live and breathe just long enough to bury their dead.
Americans understand the raw rage that Israel holds towards Hamas. It mirrors what we felt towards Al-Qaida on September 12th, 2001. We understand a desire for payback that originates from the gut – it’s what drives our support of Israeli efforts to uproot and destroy Hamas.
But I’m guessing there’ll come a point where support for Israel tips in the other direction – when our gut reaction to the sheer number of civilian casualties forces us to say, “Enough!”
Who will be the last Israeli soldier, Hamas terrorist, or Gazan civilian to die before we reach that point, and will it matter?
How can civilians in the “political middle” of this conflict affect change now when they couldn’t affect change before the conflict? – Isn’t the task of effecting change way more difficult today?
Gaza is in ruins. Survivors filled with rage and hopelessness will be looking for payback, and the peace and security that many Israelis seek has become less of a possibility.
Hamas has been at the helm of the Government in Gaza since 2007.
What have they done for the Palestinian people?
The Hamas Charter explicitly calls for the obliteration of Israel. Hamas is not interested in negotiating or coexisting with Israel. Any talks with Israel that might result in a better life for Gazans would be detrimental to Hamas’s hold on power — because peaceful coexistence with Israel negates Hamas’s primary objective, which is to kill Jews.
Hamas militants are fueled by religious hatred, laid bare in the brutal and vicious nature of their attacks on Israeli citizens. When you believe God commands you to slaughter your enemies, you do so with zeal. The greater the depravity by which they murder, the more glory to their God, or so it seems.
Even if you blame Israel entirely for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza, how can anyone justify the terroristic and vicious nature of the Hamas attack on October 7th, 2023?
I understand that Israeli policies that expand settlements and displace Palestinians exacerbate the hardships felt in Gaza.
I understand the Israeli government has contributed to Palestinians’ indignity for generations.
I understand that Israel has killed many innocent Palestinians in military operations over the years.
Does all that understanding about the indignity, the generational hopelessness, and the death and destruction at the hands of the Israeli military – justify Hamas’s attack on innocent civilians?
No, it does not – because Hamas has done nothing on behalf of Palestinians to move the needle toward peace.
They offer no hope. They are the enemy of hope.
There’s a palpable dread for what’s about to go down in Gaza.
Palestinian citizens and the hostages taken by Hamas are pawns in a never-ending religious, ethnic, and geopolitical dispute that Hamas has no interest in resolving.
The words made their way from the lips of the lady behind the ticket counter into my slightly hard-of-hearing ears.
I hesitated to answer.
Of course, I knew the answer, but I think I was shocked at being asked.
After a few seconds, I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact. Two of us are.”
And voila, my first senior discount transaction was complete.
It happened at a Showcase Cinema in Seekonk, Massachusetts, for the movie Dumb Money (which I highly recommend).
For me, it was the first time being asked publicly about my age — it was a bit trippy – and so, for a few seconds, I was a little foggy on how to respond – because, in that instance, I was forced to reconcile that regardless of how I feel or how I envision myself, in the objective eyes of others, I’m old.
I don’t see a senior discount when I look at myself in the mirror.
I don’t hear senior discount when I pump up the volume of my 90’s gunge playlist and dance around the kitchen to Nirvana and Everclear.
I guess that’s why I hesitated when asked the question.
Now I’m wondering – with my first senior discount under my belt, will I start to feel my age?
Will I begin to understand the feeling pulsing through my veins when Smells Like Teen Spirit blasts through my headphones is a hoax – a mindfuck?
Is asking about senior discounts just around the corner for me?
God, I hope not.
But one thing is certain: aging is like the Borg; resistance is futile.
bendingtheneedle 