Omran Daqueesh -- my little reminder

I’ve saved the front page of The New York Times from yesterday where there’s a photo of a Syrian boy whose silent, dust-covered face has captivated the world (the photo that accompanies this video above in the online version of the story). He captivated the world -- including me. But for how long? He was recovered from the rubble of his apartment building, which was struck by missiles during the endless civil war in his country. And I guess he was in shock so his quiet patience might be quite understandable, but the photo and the short video the entire world has seen are capable of stopping your heart. Quite literally – no hyperbole. 

I’ve saved it – just as I saved the photo of the poor Syrian boy who drowned during a crossing with other refugees and washed up on a Turkish beach, lifeless – in the hopes it can inspire me on at least two different levels. First: this is happening, people are suffering and what are you doing about it, Jeanne? You’re not even reporting on it – the very least you could do, that is your skill, if so much can be said of what you know of journalism. That's the first level. 

Second level: I don’t know how to put it, it seems to jar me awake from my daily parenting slumber – something along the lines of thinking that no matter what Leo does, he is an absolute GIFT from GOD that I must cherish every day every day every day. Because to imagine that he could ever have to experience something like this – and to know we are lucky enough that he probably won’t – well, it’s a reminder that we never have hard times. He never does anything that we can’t fix. A day in which he refuses to eat spinach and won’t touch regular milk and doesn’t want to have “quiet time,” well, a day like that, to use the cliché again, is a gift from God. 

The mother of this little Syrian boy would quite literally give her right arm to have a day like that.

Funny thing, I’ve taped the front page of the Times up on the bedroom wall to the right of this bookshelf I use as a desk/computer stand. I think it’s fairly hidden, you wouldn’t really see the folded paper taped up unless you were standing at the computer – something Mike never does. And that’s an important detail because I'd taped up the photo of the lifeless boy’s body lying on the beach in Turkey and he asked me to take it down. I taped it up for the same reason – WAKE UP JEANNE this is happening, you are so lucky, so lucky to have this boy, your little Leo – all very noble, I suppose, but the image was too much for Mike. 

I don’t blame him; I cherish his reaction in some ways. He cannot countenance all the bad that’s sewn into everyday life on Earth. We humans. For shame. And yet my God I, *I*, need a reminder. Because we will all go on, we will all go about our business and this little boy will be forgotten. But his little face (he looks to be about 4 years old – you-know-who’s-age) – and the unspoken sadness written upon it, his little plaintive stare, are so stunningly sad, the tragedy so stunningly unnecessary, that I need to remember. Give me the strength and the resolve, someone, to remember and to do something about it.

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