My day was spent up to my figurative elbows in the images and news that’s reeling out of Gaza, and I am emotionally and physically spent. I had to pick up my kid from school and bring him back to the office today, where I furtively typed and tried not to let images of dead children linger too long on my screen where the King of Everything could see them. He watched cartoons and colored in his activity book, said hello to my office mates, and was a great companion today.I am so grateful that my child is alive, healthy, and with most of his marbles in good working order he’s a total goofball, so he’s allowed to have lost a couple of his marbles, really. My family is doing well, all things considered. I have a job where I can bring my kid in, plunk him down at the other side of my desk, and not have to endure a stare or a nasty comment in my general, single-mother-director direction.Since this mess started, I’ve taken to waking up in the dead of the night. I think it might be the absolute lack of sound that does it–living in the city, it’s weird when it’s totally quiet. I’ve taken to walking around at night, to give my boy just one more kiss, to gaze on a sleeping face or curl closer and tighter around these fragile bodies that can hold so much love.  I think the world has lost its mind. I wish we’d wake up to the fact that so much death never brings a healthy resolution to conflict. I will strive even harder to be grateful, humble, flexible, and understanding. I will try not to see the world only from my point of view, but from yours as well. I will try not to take my son for granted, or any of the people who mean so much to me. We are precious. Tags: Gaza, genocide, grateful, israel, massacre, PalestineShare This