...is his seeming indifference to the sanctity of human life. From the 130 executions he oversaw as governor of Texas to nearly 3,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, the guy has played a lead role in extinguishing so many existences that sometimes I wonder how anyone can be in the same room with him, let alone shake his hand, laugh at his jokes, or allow him to continue leading our country.
Of course, if you think about the ripples of pain that emanate from each of Bush's deaths, his indifference grows exponentially more callous. For each executed criminal, each lost soldier, and each Iraqi casualty, there are friends and family members who have to suffer the unnecessary loss.
Personally, I'm lucky enough to not have experienced this type of pain, so I can only imagine its true depth. But I think it's important to try to imagine, to try to understand how the actions of our leader and our nation have affected others. With that in mind, I'm grateful for poems like the one below, recently published in The Sun. It's a different context - a mother facing the possible loss of her infant daughter - but to me, it helps drive home how much we've all got riding on each and every human life on this planet.
from Infant Pneumonia, by Cheryl Gatling:
When they handed her back,
I wouldn't lay her down again.
I slept that night in a chair,
holding her up so the mucus would drain.
In sudden, sharp focus, I cherished it all:
the sweaty spikes of her damp hair,
the rattling vibrations of every breath.
I hold no moments more precious than these,
the nearly unbearable,
a pain so pure, it was almost like happiness.
