Fear

When I was a little girl, I was afraid of “the bomb.” I didn’t exactly know what “the bomb” was, other than it was certain to destroy me, my family and everything I cared about. I knew even then that the duck and cover drills we had at school were futile. What good would hiding under the desk do against such a powerful weapon? But the drills frightened me. If “the bomb” dropped while I was at school, would I ever see my parents again? Even as a teenager that question haunted me. I was upset that I had to go to school during the Cuban missile crisis.

Memories of those fears were triggered when I heard about Putin placing his nuclear forces on “high alert” and then again when the Russians fired on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. The megalomaniac with his “finger on the button” apparently values his ego more than human life. Is the invasion of Ukraine the beginning of the end I dreaded years ago?

My childhood fears were real, but my life has been essentially untouched by war. I cannot imagine what it is like for the children of Ukraine, hiding in the subways, fleeing their homes, surrounded by death and destruction. During the wars in Serbia and Croatia in the 1990’s I remember coming upon one of my students in the cafeteria, crying. She had been unable to reach her family. One of the things she told me about living in the U.S. was that it had been hard to get used to the quiet. Growing up in a war zone, the noise of shelling and gunfire was a constant. War was all she knew.

Children should have the right to live without fear.