I Remember Asking Why….

This diary was written to be read while listening to Rusted Root’s “Cruel Sun” off their album “When I Woke” (1994)

Click to listen….then click ‘play’…


Cruel Sun

See the bloody faces lifted to the sky

Do you want to run to a future left behind?

I remember asking why, there lies aggression.

Separation where there should be love

Power plays while the people die

Let it rain and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain and protect us from this cruel sun

I remember asking why, there lies aggression

Separation where there should be love

Power plays while the people die

I remember asking why, I remember asking why

I remember asking why, I remember asking why, why.

Open up your eyes, your eyes and let the child learn.

Open up your eyes, and let the child learn

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Why does war kill only the small man?

Why does war kill only the small man?

I think we know, yes, we know

I think we know, know, know

I remember asking why.

I remember asking why.

I remember asking why.

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

Let it rain, and protect us from this cruel sun

My mother was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer on September 10th, 2001…a day before the Twin Towers were felled.  

We sat there we two, in front of the telly, mesmerized like the rest of the world…numb…unable to function…motionless…expressionless…empty.

I had just happened to fly home to visit my mother in California for a week and was unable to leave…all flights grounded…how could I leave her alone in her condition anyway???

I stayed and took care of her, of course…I don’t shirk my responsibilities…I had to leave my job and school in Miami Beach, Florida, gave up my apartment and split with my then boyfriend, whom I am now married to.  Luckily he was very understanding…

I was her only child, and she raised me by herself…it was always just the two of us.

So, on October 6th, the night before the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, aggravated by the recent politics and propaganda, I climbed into bed with my mother for the first time in my adult life and held her tight.  

As we both lie there crying for what was about to happen, I remember asking why…why did we jump so quickly and so blindly into war without so much as  an investigation?

I remember asking why…was war even a possibility with so many other tools at our disposal, we were such a civilized society here in the states, that there must be some other avenues to trod down first.  Pre-emptive war must always be the last straw, not first thought.

I remember asking why….I begged my mother for an answer….especially since she had voted for Bush and worked for his campaign in California.

I remember asking her why war was an acceptable answer to Sept. 11th.  War is a band-aid solution, a for-profit mechanism benefiting only the few whom have interests in the military-industrial complex and nothing more.  

I felt at the time that we had been attacked by those whom felt our foreign policies were wrong, unfair and unjust…why can’t we just look at those policies, and maybe look at who we were as a nation.

I remember asking why so many had to die for our own blood-lust need for revenge.  Our unconcerned, fanatical obsession with oil and it’s by-products when we know all too well that every aspect of oil and its’ retrieval are disastrous for our planet and our bodies.  We all knew Bush was after oil in the Middle East, but we we told we were crazy for even thinking along those lines.

I remember the smell of my mother, her own personal, perfect scent…lying there close to me and the warmth of her body comforting me, I felt like a child again….so scared that she was leaving me alone in a world on the brink of war, but so deeply angered by her politics.  She truly believed George Bush was the right man for the job.  If she only knew exactly what she was cheer-leading for….

Four years ago today, my mother passed away.  I didn’t get much sleep last night so I took a little snooze this morning after getting the kids to school and for the first time since she died, I had a dream of her…she whispered in my ear…’I love you my girl’…I heard her voice, so gentle and so lucidly hers…as if she were there next to me.  When the fog of sleep lifted, it took me a few moments to remember she was dead, and then I realized, she woke me at her favorite time…11:11, what she used to call ‘toothpick’ time!  Sounds silly doesn’t it…?

My mother was never able to answer my questions, I think she knew deep in her heart that she had made a fatal mistake…that she had fallen for the darkness and had been taken by it’s illustrious illusions of grandeur, never imagining that she had helped the devil rule the roost.

I think I will never understand war and torture, I hope I never do.  

I know and understand peace, though, and that is what I stand for.

Peace must be the legacy we offer our children, we must strive for peace and we must succeed.

I’m sorry I am so dark today.  I needed to reach out today, thank you dharmaniacs for being here, I needed to get this off my chest.

40 comments

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    • KrisC on March 14, 2008 at 01:40
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    I love & miss you mom…

  1. your mom was exactly who she needed to be in order for you to be who you are…and i, for one, am glad she was.

     

  2. I just don’t know what to say. Seeing my grandmother decline when I am long distance makes me ache to be living closer to my mother. I was an only child raised by mainly my mother. My dad and I have a great relationship now, but he really was not a regular in my life until I was a teenager.

    We went through some heavy shit together, mom and I. A few things to this day we can’t talk about because it is too painful. But we love one another unconditionally despite our differences and past wounds.

    So sorry that you are dark today. You are surrounded by people who want to offer you light.

  3. sometimes i miss my mom more now than i did when she left this world 12 years ago

    i’ve written and erased like 12 sentences. i know you miss her, Kris.  I feel so bad that you lost her.

    i’ll come feel blue with you for a while. put the coffee on, okay?

    • RiaD on March 14, 2008 at 02:57

    love you ♥~

    • kj on March 14, 2008 at 03:05

    are lovely ways to communicate.  ðŸ™‚  me and mum still talk, thirty-six years later. sometimes the veils between the worlds and the years lift almost all the way away.

    i remember this epic struggle that felt physical to me at the time… trying to will us way from bombing Afghanistan.  Such a historical moment… our response to the tragedy of 9/11 was so important to get right… we got it so wrong.

    Kris, won’t go into all the details now, but in the spring of 1968, my own personal world fell apart piece-by-piece with deaths and heart attacks and etc. etc. etc. I was young, campaigned for Bobby Kennedy, shook his hand, made sure my mother had her absentee ballot (she was in the hospital) so she could vote for him.  Then the killings started, Martin, Bobby. That time became forever mixed, the personal and the public.  I can’t go back to those days without the veils lifting.  OPOL’s diaries do it to me every time.  I just can’t separate what happened in our country with what happened in my family.  I guess what I’m trying to say is… you probably won’t either.  These incredibly historic times will always be mixed with your memories with your mother and the family you have now.

    Melancholy.  It’s your gift.  

    i’m going to hit ‘post’ before i think better of this and delete.

  4. My mom, 13 year breast cancer survivor.  We buried her on Mother’s Day, 2 years ago, almost.  

    Thank you for giving us all a chance to honor our mothers.  But moms are not always right.  And neither are we.  It does not diminish the love.

    in peace

  5. is what you once gave to me…PEACE

    • Alma on March 14, 2008 at 03:36

    Moms are so special, in so many ways :).  They love us no matter what.

    I totally agree with this

    I think I will never understand war and torture, I hope I never do.  

    I know and understand peace, though, and that is what I stand for.

    Peace must be the legacy we offer our children, we must strive for peace and we must succeed.

    And for Mothers and all of their children, we will do our best to stop violence.

  6. I’m crying and speechless at the same time..

    Those of us who’ve lost our moms truly understand your pain.

    Much love and many, many hugs  {{{{{Kris}}}}}

  7. … for sharing this story with us, KrisC.

    My mother, who died 1992, would have loved this story and every comment on this thread.

    What lovely comments and conversation … ponies for all of ya!

  8. I lost both parents within 9 months of each other.  Though it’s been 14 years since they passed away, there are times still miss them a lot.  But it does get easier as time passes.  One thing that I had to accept to survive is “Why ask why?”; sometimes there just aren’t any good answers. When I get down, I try hard (and some days it’s really hard!) to refocus on what I have to be grateful for rather than on what I’ve lost–usually that helps.  

    May you have many, many more up days than down ones as time passes.

  9. for ovarian cancer (benign, thank all the powers that be).  She is the Rock that holds my family together.

    I’m very sorry that you lost your mother.  I’m very glad we have you here.

  10. Well, from a manly man’s position, I had to stop and wipe the ole orbs a few times myself, seems like the dew was heavy this morning and I was having a hard time seeing. I really do understand the melancholy you are feeling on this day, and like so many above, want to send you my own support.

    {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Kris}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

    All joking aside Kris, your diary this morning opened a door inside me I rarely open these days and I appreciate so much your help in opening it today. I rarely open this door primarily because of the time elapsed, 31 years since her passing, not for any horrific reason. She passed relatively easy 10 years after having a stroke that had paralysed her left side (she was a righty) and left her mind somewhat affected (Doctors called her an emotional 12 year old). And this was a woman who had been the state chair of the Democratic Party, virtually a charitable waterfall, and a very caring mother. Remembering her today was a gift from you, Thank you!

    The love of one’s mother and the loving of one’s mother is the deepest, truest love possible. From the first perception of the fetus, the beating of the mother’s heart, there will never be a deeper connection with anyone or anything anywhere. When that connection is seemingly destroyed by the passing of one of those connected it can be devastating. But listen to the lucid dream you had this morning. The very real, very important lucid dream you had this morning. “I love you my girl”, that is what is real, not the distance in time nor the difference in states of existence.

    Your diary started off asking why, why the war, why the aggression, why, why? The depressive attitude of the world’s situation gave rise to the lucid dream you had, to counter the negative with the biggest positive you have had in your life. Try going to sleep tonight with the thought of “Thanks Mom” foremost in your mind and see what happens, you just might get another lucid dream.

    Well dang me, I am just a wee bit too wordy, aren’t I? Oh well, sorry, but there is a lot of estrogen to be balanced. Just another Dharmaniac, passing on the love. Be well, be at peace, and know you are loved by many, here and not here.

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