Gratitude

I feel like I'm missing something.

So many people posting about their life and feelings after the attack. So many people in such despair.

But there's a part of me that just wants to shout "how spoiled are we?" Sometimes I think we missed a BIG portion of the lesson.

My mother expressed some despair over how life will change for my daughter, who is 12. About growing up with war. My response? If we lived in the land where these people came from, she would have been living with war and bombs and gunfire and homelessness and starvation since she was 2.

We have come thru a horrible tragedy, with an almost unbelievable amount of lost lives. But there are no soldiers walking thru my streets that I must fear. The planes that fly overhead are not carrying bombs aimed at my house. I do not have to dodge sniper bullets while going for my groceries. My government is not storming my village, murdering husbands, sons and brothers. And all that is unlikely to happen here.

What must the people in Northern Ireland think, reading of our sadness about the dead or missing? Our fear of opening an envelope that might contain a powder that has a chance of causing us to become ill, and a lesser chance of actually killing us?

I'm embarrassed. I still have so little to fear. I still have so little to worry about.

And I am so very, very grateful for that.