Four months ago, I linked to this blog and these heartwrenching words:
When I heard the bomb explode last Saturday the first thing I did was telephone my father. But there was no reply. Again and again and again I tried to phone him. My fingers hurt I stabbed them onto the buttons on my phone so hard. I fell onto the floor and prayed please let him not be dead. Please let it be that he died quick if he is dead.
And my heart was sick inside me.
What will we talk about today you and I? I do not want to talk about last Saturday. Shall we talk about peace? I would like to talk about peace. I love the word. No, perhaps we are not ready to talk of peace yet you and I, we are not at peace, we are not even at truce.
And last night, I learned that the most horrible, the most dreaded outcome has come to pass. The writer of that blog (and please, do read it again, written after the loss of his brother), Mohammed Ibn Laith (age 16) survived a bombing, along with his younger sister and brother, that claimed the lives of his fellow Gorilla's Guides bloggers Zeynab Bint Hassan and Hassan Ibn Omar. Mohammed's own parents were killed only a month after that post.
Dear God. I know these are but a few of hundreds of thousands of deaths in Iraq, but it doesn't make it any easier to accept. My heart goes out to Mohammed and his siblings and I pray that we find a way to peace soon. If you'd like to help Mohammed and his family, Appletree suggests the following:
You can honor their memory by making a donation to the Iraq Program of the International Committee of the Red Cross/Crescent/Crystal, and by writing your congressman and demanding a withdrawal from Iraq at the soonest possible date.
