Maimed and not marinated

I woke up this morning – still under the effect of NyQuil – thinking of the 3 million newly minted refugees.

I am one. So I know. Where to pee, what to eat (if any) and where to place your belonging (watching it like a hawk eye).

I started out with two sets of hurriedly packed clothing. And even then, I almost gave away one of two to a defected Air-Force neighbor who stood out like a sore thumb amidst a sardine-pack full of civilian refugees on the USS Blue Ridge.

He was a helicopter maintenance guy, who later opened and operated an auto shop in St Louis, MO.

I checked the Red Cross bulletin every day. For news from home, for news of friends who might have gotten out.

We’re lucky. After months of being adrift at seas, in Wake Island, we landed in Indian Town Gap, PA (my first encounter with something akin to Native American). Then graduated with a media degree after an internship covering the Three-Mile-Island incident.

I felt like I have had many lives: Vietnamese youth, American adult, and now, amnesia old-age.

Actors and writers I admire are dying off by the dozens. About time to go, myself. No need to fake it till I make it.

Then I woke up this morning, instead of turning the clock Spring forward, rewinding back to when I was 19. Adrift at sea. Uncertain of any immediate future. “Let’s confront it” – I blurted out at an academic advisor, regarding whether to take Speech Communication as a study major.

I gave a passionate speech for final, about cherishing your freedom, not to take it for granted….to a classroom full of Nittany Lions footballers (half asleep). That freedom was later taken away from their Defensive Coach, who took young children into campus locker room for a quickie.

Now, facing their future uncertain, the same millions might wish they had been dead by covid.

The living need help, as oppose to the dead who need no sympathy. And here we are, forwarding the clock, by one hour for daylight saving. I wish we could forward past this sad chapter of our current conundrum, fast forwarding for a month or two.

When there is still life, there is still hope.

I hope for a quick resolution to the situation in Ukraine. I hope for an eventual settlement of the three million who have fled danger. I hope for the healing of the children of war. I hope for music to be played again outside and in the hearts of many Ukrainians.

When the President – after his term – returned to his true calling: of making people laugh, instead of crying, then we have peace. Hope so. But the reality on the ground is just the opposite: bodies get maimed and marinated. Smokes get in their eyes. “Why do the birds go on singing…don’t they know, it’s the end of the world”…

Their bodies bagged and tossed into a mass grave. And the undertaker said “I don’t care which side is right or wrong, I just want this to stop”. Sounds like he has reached his limit. For an undertaker, that says a lot about a sudden war.