Friends Need and Love You, Even at Your Worst.

So, a friend recently reminded me of something I already knew: friendship means you're there for the long hauls, and the illogically sad moments, just as much as you are there for the incredibly joyful ones. And surprisingly, in those moments, sometimes they need you just as much or more.

It's been a long summer, filled with more downs than ups, and it seems, in some ways to have dragged on way too long. Getting passed the emotional upheaval of loss is difficult when it's so deeply tied to your physical being; especially when your physical being is extraordinarily abnormal.

I've written about the miscarriage Jeph and I suffered over the summer, but I haven't written about the frustrations associated with how long it takes to become whole again. The one positive situation to come out of the process is that my ambivalence about motherhood is resolved. But we haven't been able to start over, and it still may be several months before we can. No one ever tells you that, but then again, everyone's situation is different.

We chose our path. We chose to wait until we were really ready before we tried. We chose to be at least 10 years older than most other couples before taking this leap. I often find myself in a world of women who chose more wisely, and who are starting their families long before the odds are against their success. Sometimes, that's difficult.

A dear friend of mine who suffered major obstacles in having her daughter, and only succeeded through in vitro, recently posted something on her Facebook page about the feelings you have when everyone else around you can get pregnant and stay pregnant without additional help. I certainly have not yet found myself having to go down the many difficult roads of seeking help for infertility, but I identified greatly with the feelings on that list.

And even as I admit my feelings, I know how unfair they are. It's nobody's fault that I had a miscarriage, and it's nobody's fault that we cannot yet try again. It's not fair that I sometimes feel so overwhelmed by the loss when I am surrounded by people who deservedly are experiencing so much joy.

I had such a day recently. I had an opportunity to go to lunch with a couple of really great friends, both of whom are expecting. One of those friends has played a major role in helping me get through the worst of the pain. The other friend is one with whom I also have shared some very difficult and life altering moments. And yet, I found myself in such a dark place, I just couldn't bring myself to go.

About a week later, the latter of those two friends helped me realize my mistake. In the moment I fled the scene, I thought I was protecting the two of them from my unfair feelings of sadness, and that they were better off not having to deal with me. I didn't want any of my feelings to take anything away from them, and I was afraid that's what would happen.

My friend has been going through some ups and downs with her pregnancy, and reached out to me. I explained to her what I had been feeling that day, and she told me she wished I had just talked to her. As I talked my way through the feelings I was having, and the difficulties in the process I have been going through, I came to understand that I had been a terrible friend--not because I was sad, but because I didn't share it. My friend needed me as much in my heartbreak as she needs me in my joy.

It's hard to share the bad with people. It's hard to feel like you won't be bringing them down. It's especially hard when there is guilt attached to those feelings. But if your friends are truly your friends, they don't want you to hide from them--no matter what.

That's hard to remember in the moment. And I'm not going to say that I will always get it right. But, I'm going to try to remind myself that I am not just the feeling I am having at any given moment. I am still the person I always have been. I always have something to share. Sadness and experience do not define us, they refine us.

Shake it Out--Florence + The Machine

What stole the "care" from healthcare? July 8, 2012

So, I haven't made it a secret that Jeph and I recently suffered a very painful loss. Losing the promise of a child is a tough experience to go through, and I know I wasn't prepared for it. It's taking time, but I'm doing better.

As the weeks since this loss have ticked slowly away, I have had moments that remind me how loved and cared for I am by people; how oblivious some people can be to your pain; and sadly, how little care there truly is in human healthcare.

I've been working in a different hospital for almost three months. While I've come to care about the people I work with there, I hadn't anticipated how understanding and caring some of them would be toward me. One day, Elton John's "Your Song" buried me while I cleaned the teeth of a dog, I now can't even remember. My doctor that day was about eight months along in her second pregnancy. She knew I needed a moment, and she knew I needed to talk. I will always appreciate how she rescued me that day.

A dear friend, who frequently rescues me sends me "check-in" texts at least once a week, and in the beginning of this painful experience, she texted me multiple times a day. I think she kept me from spiraling into despair a thousand times. I hate that she can relate to my experience, because her kindness to me makes her loss seem even more unfair. I'm envious of her ability to convey the strength she does in the face of such a loss. I had always known she was amazing, but now, I will never forget it. And I will never forget how she continues to support me and make me feel cared about--even weeks later.

Some people overwhelm you with loving gestures, you can barely show appropriate appreciation for. A friend I've known since first grade, and reconnected with a few Twilight years ago, had one of her favorite series of books shipped to me. It's amazing how the love of a friend, and a few good books can help you escape a world that can be hard to face at moments. Still another friend, who has clotheslined me with her thoughtfulness before, sent me a handmade card offering me a bit of Bono's mojo.

The outpouring of care from these women, who are now woven into my memory of this experience forever, is something for which I can never thank them adequately. Aside from Jeph, they have been my "primary care providers."

And that is actually what I really want to talk about--the state of human healthcare.

Just two short weeks before we lost our pregnancy, I was driving Jeph to a hospital because he was experiencing terrible pain every time he tried to breathe. Through the course of the three days he spent in the hospital, we experienced a wide range of care. From concerned and helpful, to distracted and oblivious--we saw it all. There were moments we were frustrated, but when you're stuck in a hospital bed, you often forget that it's your right to ask for better.

I had been waiting to see my new OB/GYN until I was at least nine or ten weeks along. The appointment scheduler had made it very clear that I didn't need to be seen when I initially called. I freely told her that I knew nothing about the process and was happy to follow their lead on what I needed to do--no additional information was offered--not even what to do if I did find myself in trouble. When trouble came, I had no idea what I was supposed to do, and surprisingly, nobody else I asked knew either. We ended up in the emergency room, where I had a sonogram Jeph couldn't be there for, and the technician was not allowed to answer any questions about. In one of the most vulnerable situations of my life, I was completely alone and in the dark about what was happening. As that day progressed and trouble continued, I desperately phoned the office of that new doctor I was waiting to see, and the on-call doctor chastised me for going to the emergency room at all. After having additional testing added to my blood-work, he ordered me to find a 24-hour pharmacy to get a prescription filled. I desperately Googled for said pharmacy--never in my life had I needed to know what pharmacy would be open at midnight on a Saturday. The doctor made it seem urgent that I make it into his office the following Monday. Interestingly, it was only to have more lab work drawn, which I was assured I'd have the result of later in the day. Nothing. After leaving two messages, his nurse called the following day and failed to listen to half of what I told her. When I finally got her to listen, she very frankly told me she believed I had already miscarried. I'd never met this woman, or the doctor she worked for.

A good friend of ours has been dealing with a fairly painful health issue over the last week, and landed in the office of a nurse practitioner. He soon realized she wasn't listening to him, because she was too busy saying what she wanted to say. When I heard how inappropriately appropriately he had called her out on the situation, I was proud of him. Surprisingly, getting her attention didn't change the tenor of the visit, and he walked out to seek help from someone who might actually care.

And that's the thing. I think many of us are raised to respect doctors, nurses and people in the healthcare  profession. They go to school for a long time and they know more than we do. We accept that when we try to schedule appointments that we won't be able to see them for weeks, unless we are near death. We accept that we must arrive early for our visit. We must bring a book or magazine to entertain ourselves in the waiting room, while we wait passed the time of our scheduled appointment to see the doctor, or nurse practitioner. We sit, uncomfortably naked in those horrible gowns on those horrible exam tables with the same book we brought, while we wait for another extended period of time to see our healthcare providers. In most cases, they breathlessly breeze in, to spend as little time with us as possible, and as they walk out of the room, they remind us that we haven't lost any weight since the last time they told us to.

Why do we accept all of this? I don't know. But I'm done.

When I asked my last primary care provider what things I should be thinking about as I approached the idea of becoming pregnant, her only responses were that I would be fine and I should get some exercise. She shares an office with my new primary care provider and her bio states that her special interest is in obstetrics and gynecology. My new primary care provider, which I stumbled upon because I wasn't able to see the other one, is from India. She is an internal medicine specialist, and surprisingly, she spends time talking to me. When Jeph got out of the hospital from his pulmonary embolism, she wanted to see him right away, and when he got there, she had already taken the time to review his case front to back. When the office of my OB/GYN failed me, she made the calls necessary to get me face time with the doctor. They had been perfectly content to leave me in limbo for another couple of days.

I work in veterinary medicine. We deal with "crazy" people everyday. Until last month, I didn't understand what it was like to be one of those crazy people. Now I do. It's difficult at times. In my business, people are not the patients, they are more like the insurance providers. They decide what kind of technical care I can provide to my patients.

As I have learned what kind of care I won't accept for myself anymore, I have learned what kind of care I will not provide. I know my patients would always want what's best for themselves. I know that their "insurance providers" can't always provide that level of care. But now, I also know that most of them really do care, and really do want help, or else they wouldn't be in front of me. Perhaps if I show how much I care, they will be able to face providing whatever level of care they can with as much comfort and dignity as I can give them.

I don't know who or what stole the "care" from healthcare. I imagine there are a million things they deal with  I will never understand, and somehow, those things have chipped away at their ability to listen, to understand and to empathize. But I also imagine that I will never sit in a waiting room to see someone who has lost their ability to care again.

"I Won't Back Down" Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

June 22, 2012--The Other Side

So, I've been seeing Facebook posts over the last couple of days about getting through things, and finding the way to the so-called "other side." One of those was a quote by the late Doors front man Jim Morrison.

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.” 

 

My response to this post from my husband: "It's there, whether you want it to be or not. And if you try to ignore it, you can't ever get through it. That's why I let myself cry when I need to, if I can. You can't "break on through to the other side." You have to get there one tear at a time; one heartbreak at a time."

 

In forty years, I've managed to survive and overcome a lot of very painful things. People who know me well and all of the things I've gotten through in life think I'm strong. I suppose I should still think of that as a compliment, but any more, I just find it annoying. The thing about having a reputation for being strong is that when something hits me like a sledgehammer,  I feel guilty if I can't keep my shit together. I feel compelled to keep putting one foot in front of the other, even when I want to fall to the floor and crumple into a limp, damp ball. 

 

Another master of words has come to my mind often this week: Bono. Every time I hit a wall in life, there is a string of lyrics that never fails to flash through my mind. "Sometimes I feel like...I don't know. Sometimes I feel like checking out. I wanna get it wrong. Can't always be strong." I think these words mean so much to me, because of my annoyance with my reputation for being able to keep things together. Isn't even the strongest person entitled to a major emotional breakdown, and the occasional unbridled fuck up in response? 

I haven't done so well this week. 

After my last blog, a dear young friend reached out to me, and spoke of how strong my relationship with Jeph is, and how much she hopes to build something as strong as we have in her own life. 

Jeph and I have been through things we never imagined possibly being so hard. The loss of two of our dogs brought us to our knees. The destruction of a giant chunk of his home town brought Jeph to places so dark and disturbing that I can't imagine. Job losses. Dreams crumbling. We've seen a lot. He's the strong one this week, and I envy him, though I know he's being so for me. 

As I have slogged through the quicksand of learning what the fate of our lentil bean would be, I have gone from the moment I knew a heartbeat existed, to the moment I knew there was nothing. I've gone from cautiously optimistic to hysterical, and every place in between. 

I don't want to feel the pain; not because I can't bear it, but because I can't bear for anyone to see me bearing it. I want to skip the period of time in which I will be fine one moment, and a puddle of tears the next. I want to skip the hours of sleep I can't seem to get right now, because my brain and heart won't shut down. I want to get to the other side of this agonizing time.

I know Jim Morrison was driven and inspired by a fast life of substance abuse, and overindulgence on many levels. If you believe the version of his life presented by Oliver Stone in the movie "The Doors," he was more than a little crazy. But the quote my husband posted shatters my already broken heart with its clarity and truth. 

Whether it's pain, fear or desolation, you can't get through these feelings without feeling them. You can't be real with yourself or anyone else unless you let what your really feeling pass through you so you can get to the other side of it. 

Some people will argue that you must remain positive. You must keep a stiff upper lip. You must carry on. I found myself dealing with medical professionals who were less than sensitive. I found myself hearing life altering news from people who didn't know me. In the midst of this, I came to an understanding about how I deal with people who are in pain, or even just in a state of worry. In my business, people often make demands on my time and the time of my colleagues that feel unreasonable. Until this week, I had never been a person seeking help, seeking information and seeking comfort. I had never been the patient or client going off on the person on the other end of the line. I had never been made to feel so trivial and so helpless. And over the course of the week, I realized that I could think of times I hadn't been any better to those so-called crazy and nuisance people.

 

Not only was I uncomfortable dealing with my own pain and fear, but I didn't want to deal with anyone else's either. It's easier to avoid pain than to feel it or face it. It's the reason why so many of us never take risks or leaps in our lives. It's the reason why so many of us stay put in situations we don't like, rather than chancing a loss of stability. If we never try to do something amazing, we will never fail at it, and we will never have to recover from anything. We will never lose. 

The thing we often overlook in living our lives that way is that we also will never win. Every great thing we dream of, or aspire to will never happen. 

We spent a lot of time hemming and hawing over whether we would try to have a child or not. I think we mostly waited because we didn't want to risk that it would change us and our lives in ways we would regret. But when I think of Jeph explaining to people that it came to him that we should, because he wanted to finally do something meaningful with life, it occurs to me that maybe he's right, and maybe our fear of failing to remain who we are has kept us from living as meaningful a life as we might have for longer than we should have. 

We were afraid to feel the pain of mistakes. We were afraid to feel the discomfort of change. In the moment of hysteria I experienced last Saturday night, that fear and pain of loss made me understand how much I really wanted our lentil bean--how much I really wanted our child. While the agony of the loss seems to be hitting me in waves, without this pain, I wouldn't know that I must try again, and I must try better. Without feeling this pain, I couldn't get to the other side. I'm not going to break through, because pain doesn't work that way. The giant gaping wound heals slowly, and side to side. The pulling back together of my spirit won't happen overnight, and as another friend shared with me, I may still feel the scar so many years from now. I may still be feeling the pain as a reminder of how I made it to that other side. 

So, wallow, when you have to. Choke back tears when it feels right and you can. Eat a whole pie. Let the tears fall in the car while you sing along to songs on the "New Moon" soundtrack. Feel what you need to feel to get where you need to go. Because you're never going to get through it by trying to get around it. 

Possibility--Lykke Li

A Miscarriage of Certainty

So, I haven't written for a while. For a number of reasons, I just haven't felt like it. I had been experiencing a sense of immaturity about it and the way that it sometimes feels like open mic night at a comedy club, when there are only a couple of people in the crowd, and they're really just there because of the fabulous potato skins and chicken tenders. I've also been wrestling with a new work assignment that has left me feeling drained mentally and physically. Writing seemed, once again, to have become something that really didn't do anything for anyone, except me, and like so many people, I felt like it was hard to justify something that seemed kind of self-centered.

Being self-centered isn't a hard concept for me, as I am sure it's not for many of us. It's easy to get stuck in moments that aren't great and be consumed by them. It's easy to get wrapped up in little events, things and excitements. But occasionally, life clotheslines us, and we realize that some things are really huge.

About four weeks ago, Jeph and I found out that we were going to be parents--to something without fur. Some things are impossible to believe, no matter how many times you see evidence of it. Like most women, I had decided not to spread the unbelievable news around until I felt like it was "safe" and that we were out of the scary time.

And then, the next life altering event: Jeph Blanchard throws a blood clot to a lung and spends three days in a hospital bed, completely out of control of one of the things he is constantly in control of--his body. The awareness of the gravity of the situation was not lost on me, and of course, the fear that something could happen to my partner in this big adventure hit me like a freight train. I'm sure the mere two hours of sleep I got after learning of this crazy made the weight of the situation significantly greater.

When you overcome the odds of age, percentages and a bullet, you figure that the biggest bump left will literally be the biggest bump your body will ever experience. The pursuit of getting pregnant and the thought of trying to become a parent is really pretty abstract. In the early days, I really haven't "felt" pregnant. But reading about it in multiple sources and visiting about it with experienced friends assured me that I was normal. At this point, it's important for us to all switch off the goggles and extendible ears that allow us to see and hear that biological clock ticking away as I get halfway through my fortieth year. My age was my only hurdle. My only fear.

I had already decided not to be a hero. I thought of the many women I have worked with over the years and how they had managed their pregnancies. They ranged from the very protective and needy, to the obscenely independent and blase. I've literally worked with women who have gone into labor at work. I don't see the sense of that. I was just going to do what I felt comfortable with. Unfortunately, in our work life, most of us feel compelled to be what everyone else needs, and most of the time, we put what we need on the back burner.

I had also decided not to be a crazy pregnant lady. I wasn't going to worry about every soda I shouldn't drink or every pound overweight I already am. I wasn't going to request that we purchase a special mask for me to wear while I managed anesthesia at work, and while I clearly wasn't going to clean any litter boxes, I was still going to touch cats. I wasn't going to freak out about every little bloat, cramp or spot. I wasn't going to be the wife who looked at her husband and said "no, honey, it might hurt the baby."

I know that there's really only so much anyone can control in life. I've made it pretty clear in past blogs that I'm not relying on some mystical, unknown being to save me or to magically wipe away any bad. But I never expected to feel the way I have felt in the last twenty-four hours. I never knew how horrible uncertainty and waiting could feel. I never knew that I could feel so protective about something that is so small. I never knew that potentially losing something the size of a lentil bean could make me feel so stripped bare. The limbo state of waiting for "threatened" to become "eminent" is painful. The prospect of things ending badly, and having to try again is sobering.

Part of me doesn't want to hope that the tiny intervention might work, because what if we are trying to save something that just wasn't meant to be? Part of me wants beyond all medical knowledge and reason to fight hard. Part of me wonders if there's something in our nature that helps us know when something is wrong, and if that's why I hadn't been ready to start writing in that journal I picked up while baby shopping for a friend.

For weeks, I have been thinking about one of my favorite movies about becoming a mother: "The Waitress." Jenna, played by Kerri Russell, finds herself in the family way while in the midst of a miserably unhappy marriage. One of the first things she does is write a letter to her unborn child, and she continues to do this periodically throughout the movie.

"Dear baby..." all of the letters begin. That's how I had been envisioning this time would be. Almost as if giving up writing here would be replaced with writing there.

As I sit waiting for my body to decide what to do, I am filled with uncertainty. I am filled with grief. I am filled with the emptiness of not knowing. But I think that no matter what happens, I am reminded today of how I cope with life. I cope with it using letters and words, and they don't have to be for anyone else. They can be just for me.

Dear lentil bean,

We don't know if we will get to meet you or not. We hope that you know we were finally feeling ready for you, and we were going to love you so much. We know if you can't make it, that there is a really good reason, and we will hope some piece of who you were going to be will find us again. For now, just rest quietly while we all wait to see. We're going to do our best to do the same, and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to write you again and tell you that everything looks much better.

Love,
Lima Bean

Fires--Band of Skulls

Passive loss

A mound of ebbing energy,
you are rescued, just to succumb.
The struggle to save you
unravels and you simply fade.
The agonizing stench of your loss,
awakens the best and worst.
You are leaving even as you arrive,
rescued, only to be lost by fools.
The gone of you is overwhelming,
then the moving from you, a relief sigh.
All that remains, a dirty husk,
you were here, only to be quickly gone.
You were rescued and lost to fools. 

Holding on

Adrift upon the roughest seas,
I wash upon the rocky shore.
Slippery and sharp, I hold on.
I hold on because that's all there is.
I hold on because holding on is what I know.
For hours and days, I cling,
My hands and face sliced, slashed.
The cuts flay me deep, bleed me dry.
I watch the time bleed away from me,
I watch, only because I am paralyzed by moments.
Warmer, softer grasses--an oasis,
I can only dream of in the distance,
The cold water awakens my desperation.
I cling for fear of going under,
I cling to stop the drowning, the slipping away.
The gulls screech by taunting,
Shouting at me to swim--to fly.
I turn, leaning my head against the rocks.
Shutting out the sound of those calls,
Shutting out the judgment of my chosen failure.
My arms limp and weak from bruising,
I feel each and every bone snapping.
Each break met with misshapen smiles.
Lips crossing like fingers waiting for my crush,
Lips forming words that taunt like gulls without beaks.
Drowning might set me free,
Slipping under may allow my rest
I tighten my hold, steeling myself against thought.
For now, I am more frightened of freedom,
For now, I hold onto the worthlessness of security.
From time to time, the sun warms me,
Brings me back to life in the cold sea,
And I see your warm, soft grasses in the distance.
I am tired from holding on, but I still do,
I hold on, because in the distance,
     somehow, I know I will always find you.

March 29, 2012--Driven to kill?

So, I have a list--a short list--of people that I truly despise. One time, I even contemplated killing one of them. It wouldn't have been a crime of passion. It wouldn't have been self-defense. It wouldn't have been an act of madness. It wouldn't have been an act of war. It just would have been an act of retribution--payback for years of fear, oppression and pain. But as much as I wanted to do it, and as much as I believed it was possible that I could, I couldn't.

Most of us will never know what it's like to take the life of another human. Regardless of belief systems, it seems to be an act that most of us innately know to be heinous and unforgiveable. Even though many enlist in the different branches of the armed forces, most people doing so hope they will never be forced to take another life.

Those of us who don't find ourselves in situations that force our hands, don't know what enters the mind of individuals who make the fateful decision to kill someone else. Until reading the now wildly popular "Hunger Games" series, I couldn't imagine a circumstance that would convicne children to actvely participate in the sport of killing each other. Most of the characters never would have considered committing such a heinous act, until reaching that arena and knowing that it was kill or be killed. Until under direct threat, Katniss seemed to be avoiding the inevitable--letting others do the killing.

"The Hunger Games" aren't real life. But luckily, in real life we don't frequently find ourselves in the position of having to defend ourselves or others. I would bet most of us don't know what we would do in these kinds of circumstances. We hope we'd be able to protect ourselves or those we love, but we hope we never have to find out.

In recent days, the idea of being "driven to kill" has taken the spotlight.

An Army Staff Seargent allegedly went door to door killing innocent Afghan men, women and children. Many people say that if he committed this horrible crime, it's only because he was "driven to it" after multiple deployments, traumatic brain injury and the influence of alcohol. We should feel sorry for him.

Hundreds of thousands of men and women have been deployed to active duty multiple times and suffered brain and other significant injuries. But only one was allegedly "driven to kill" nine children. What I have found deplorable is the number of people coming to his defense, justifying his actions because of how much he has suffered from being deployed so many times. It's difficult, if he indeed did commit this terrible act, to understand how a father of two young children could take the lives of other children. I'm having a great deal of difficulty finding it in my heart to understand or empathize with this kind of act. I find myself not caring about how many times he was deployed, or what he suffered. I'm sure the relatives of the victims don't find any peace in knowing their loved ones were cut down in their sleep because a man had willingly enlisted in the armed forces and found himself serving multiple tours. I find myself looking for accountability.

If there can be a positive for me in reflecting on this act, it's that I know there are countless other men and women serving us honorably--over and over--and doing everything to hold themselves together and not get sucked into this kind of abyss. Knowing this makes my support for our troops even stronger, because the majority are showing grace under extreme pressure and duress. We owe them a debt we will never be able to repay.

Killing in a war zone is what a war zone is all about. We expect people to kill each other on a war front, but we don't expect it on our city streets.

People everywhere are protesting, and calling for the arrest of a man who took the life of a seventeen-year-old African American boy in Florida. The man claims that his actions were self defense. He claims that the boy came after him and beat him up. He was forced to defend himself. I don't know what really happened. There's a good chance none of us will ever learn the whole truth behind the incident, because a bizarre law in Florida makes the act of deadly force legal if you claim such force was used in self-defense.

The thing that makes me wonder most about this incident is the recorded conversation between the shooter and a 911 dispatcher who was telling him not to pursue the boy--to let law enforcement address the situation. He ignored the dispatcher's directive. Why? I don't even care about the possibility that he used an obscene racial slur in the call. I just find it hard to understand why he continued to pursue the kid. I also consider how the average man might react to seeing someone seem to stalk them while on a cell phone, and I wonder, would that have driven Trayvon to confront him--in turn giving Zimmerman an even greater sense of just cause for taking his life? Could a shoving match over bitter words and misinterpreted actions led to this kid's death?

I'm not naive. I know that as much as I would prefer to live in a world where we could all resolve issues non-violently, I understand that won't always happen. But short of some aberrant twist of chromosomes, I will never understand what makes one human more likely to "snap," and with seemingly little to no cause take the life of another human.

Killing does not lead to anything good. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, even my emotions were high, and in the flurry, I believed a violent response was warranted. But in the years since, it has become less clear to me what the benefit of such a response truly has been. Trillions of dollars have been spent. Thousands of lives have been laid to waste. The ideology of the region we have occupied for the last ten years has barely inched from what it was at the time of the attacks. The destruction of sixteen innocent lives certainly hasn't further endeared us to the Afghan people, or anyone else in the region.

On our home front, the New Black Panthers are calling for loud protests and an "eye for an eye" in regards to the slaying of Trayvon Martin. They are practically inciting violence with their rhetoric.

I'm at a loss to understand how spilling the blood of others can help right any wrong. I'm at a loss to understand how we can look at anyone and say "he was driven to it."

Mahatma Ghandi said it better than anyone else ever will: "An eye for an eye will leave the whole world blind."

 Mothers of the Disappeared--U2