I’ve never known war … never fought, never hid in the bathroom during an air raid.  The closest I’ve come to this fear was when the twin towers came down during 911.

I’ve fired a gun once in my life, at a target, and the vibration shuddered my arms.  I’ve never hit anyone.  Once, in anger, I threw a piece of chalk in a classroom of students.  Thank God it missed everyone.

I have had a privileged life.  Peace often accompanies me.  I have enough food.  I have enough friends.

Maybe you the reader have been through hell on the battlefield – watched your friends die, felt the blood seeping from a stomach wound.  I’ve been protected from all this.

I read today about a young woman …

7 Oct 1943, Ottla Kafka, beloved sister of author Franz Kafka, was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz after volunteering to escort a group of orphans from the Terezin ghetto so they wouldn’t be afraid.

I’ve been kind to lots of human beings, but never when their lives were in danger.  Ottla teaches me.

***

May my eyes see, again and again

That I am blessed with ease

And that so many people have not been