| sometimes i wonder if there is something wrong with me. i feel like i think very differently from the majority of the world on certain issues. i guess its a cynicism in some areas, like when im not willing, unlike most of the american population, to accept every president we've had as wonderful, esp the more archaic figure-head types like lincoln and washington... or wilson *growls* anyway...so it seems that sometime im cynical and dare to degrade what others will not, a fact which my parents tend to attribute to my youth. other times though, i feel as though im sympathetic to the point where i have to hit myself and make sure im not a liberal. late last night, my dad came into my room to mutter on his way out again that saddam hussein had been executed. i was reading, and as he left, i stopped dead for a minute and thought about this. for as long as i can remember, since i was very little, saddam hussein was a 'bad guy' that i head my parents and grandparents talk about, heard about on the news. as a little kid, i understood vaguely that we were in a war with saddam hussein, and that he killed lots of good people for no reason, and that he had torture chambers with drills in them (im not quite sure where that particular understanding came from). i didnt like him, i was scared of him, but he did not affect my world except to be part of the building components that made up the walls of my world as a child. i knew of saddam like i knew of castro, like i knew of income taxes, like i knew of war. it was just something that *was*, something that adults talked about, and something to do with politics, that strange sounding word which caused heated (but to me unintelligeable) discussions at the dinner table. one might say i took saddam hussein, along with many other things, for granted. and now saddam is dead. its not that i have a sentimental attachment to him, even though he did form a part of the world i grew up in....no, logically--and truthfully--im glad hes gone....and yet....something terribly sad strikes me in his death....a tragic beauty that comes of the snuffing out of a human life. saddam hussein was an evil man who did evil things...but he laughed, didnt he? he felt sadness at times, didnt he? saddam hussein stubbed his toe and had a favourite food and got the stomach flu occasionally just like everybody else in the world...and so when he was executed...there was a human life on that gallows, slowly and resolutely approaching the noose....a human life refused the hood....a human life struggled for a moment....a human life choked to death, suffocating in one of the most painful and tortoruous ways to die... today on facebook i noticed that a friend of mine had changed his status to 'so psyched about saddam's death' and it made my stomach turn. saddam hussein as an individual: i am as glad that he is no longer in a position to hurt his people anymore, to kill and take the lives of the innocent, no longer a nuclear threat to the world....but saddam houssain as a human being was exactly that...a human being. how can you take a sick pleasure in the death of a man? death in that sense has always fascinated me--to use the word fascination in the sense of a snake hypnotizing a mouse with its glare before striking....the concept of death is something that i can think about for hours and still feel tiny and insignificant in comparison....i am not afraid of death so long as i am in the state of grace (in which, of course, i strive to stay) and love my Lord and try to do His will....so, i do not fear death in a terrified sort of way, only in a mundane, humanly selfish 'but i dont want to go right now so i cant contemplate going later' sort of way....but when i hear about someone dying, the thought confuses and frustrates me, even while another part of me prays for their soul and understands that they are either with God or forever. how can someone not-be just like that? i read about famous people that have died, like the actor from 'everybody loves raymond' or james brown...and i think....they no longer exist on this earth....(obviously i never question the existence of their souls, when i say things like 'they no longer exist' etc im speaking of the living-on-earth sense)...usually the thoughts manifest themselves in a more mundane way: "but now whos going to do those heartburn commercials?" but the meaning of such a thought is to me more complex....what is it like to watch someone die? as they lay there, taking that last breath....(i always imagine an old woman surrounded by her family, in a nursing home, for some reason) what is it like to a bystander? is there a different feel in the room from the moment that there are four people in the room to the moment there are only three? and what about the people who are not old when they die? God's plans are unknown to us, but to human beings, or at least to me, it seems as though some people are taken so swiftly and so suddenly that the rest of the world just isnt prepared....the thought of that person being gone seems surreal...the thought of saddam hussein being gone seems surreal....somewhere, his body lies on a table, covered in a sheet, but it is just a shell...just a body....now that his soul is gone....what made him who he was...all thats left ....is the body of a man.... |
