Thinking much of Tom Fox, and the other hostages, whose fate we still don't know, today.
It's hitting me for the first time, it all seemed so remote before somehow. Maybe I thought that they wouldn't kill any of them - that it would be bad "PR", or that compassion would win out. Maybe I thought they'd plotted it together to get the US to pay attention.
I have written so much of personal grief here. This person or that person (or dog) dies, and my life is the poorer for it, sometimes I wonder why it had to happen, if it had to happen, what I could have or should have done.
I didn't know Tom Fox, or any of the others. As I said, they seemed distant to me, movie characters. I didnt' spend any time imagining what they were doing day to day in captivity (of course, why would I want to?)
And yet my grief is real, for those who knew him, who have lost someone who was clearly an amazing man. And also for the world. My grief that that sort of sacrifice is ever called for in this world, that acting with such great love and vulnerability and courage doesn't bring immediate or guaranteed change. That I can't imagine ever having such courage and love myself.
And of Forgiveness, which I mull over quite a bit. How to forgive that? To preemptorily forgive those who will harm you, to choose to put yourself in harm's way anyway. It is so powerful, and yet I don't know, still, if I can make sense of it. My sense of self preservation is perhaps too strong, or my faith too weak.
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