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Column Concern for pet hid childs anxiety
By KRIS BERGGREN
On my desk today sits a wide-angle
lens photo of the New York skyline taken from the deck of the ferry to the
Statue of Liberty two years ago when my family visited the city. I retrieved it
from the barely tamed pile of photos seeking albums in my office closet. In
this picture the twin towers are just a bit left of center, anchoring the
composition, balanced by the Staten Island ferry in the right foreground. I try
to picture those buildings gone. The photo would lose its composition entirely;
it would be without a focal point.
We are searching for something to balance the newly disordered
composition of our lives. For some, it involves doing something concrete to
right that precarious balance: giving blood, donating socks, serving sandwiches
and coffee. Mental health professionals say this is good.
They also say talking is good. My 10-year-old said that he felt a
little scared, but his class discussed the situation for about an
hour and he felt better. Another fifth-grader I know put pen to paper and
wrote an impassioned plea for a nonviolent response. She wrote: All I
hear about now is how people want to strike back, give them a taste of their
own medicine, but if we do, we wont just be sinking to their level, but
we will also be hitting innocent people with a hand thats meant for
someone else. And, as my friend Clare pointed out, Two bombs dont
make a right.
Adults who share her viewpoint have begun to circulate petitions
decrying war moves or to protest in front of federal buildings, calling for
peace in a world shaken by violence.
Others are rallying around the flag. Its up in windows of
homes, in front of businesses, on T-shirts, even formed in assemblies of people
holding red, white or blue cards and positioning themselves in the design of
the stars and stripes. It is a potent symbol for many of the glory days past,
of the patriotism that surrounded domestic war efforts during World War II, of
a time we perhaps only imagine in which a simpler, more innocent world order
prevailed.
Lots of people, especially young children, are having a hard time
knowing what they feel. A classmate from Fordham now living elsewhere on the
East Coast frequently visits New York with her husband and sons, ages 8, 6 and
5; in fact, theyd been there the week prior to the attack. My boys
loved those towers, she said. Yet, when she picked them up from school
and carefully explained what had happened that day, that the towers they loved
had been demolished in a terrible plane crash and many people had died,
They said, Oh. Can we go out and play now?
Just because some children arent talking doesnt mean
they arent feeling. The night after the attack, my friends oldest
boy crawled into bed to snuggle with his mom and confessed that he was a
little scared. My youngest child said very little about what happened in
the ensuing days, but was uncharacteristically edgy and whiny. I wondered if
she was coming down with the flu, but the real problem was eventually
diagnosed. As we brushed teeth before bed she suddenly turned to our
12-year-old cat, picked the animal up and said, Poor kitty doesnt
know where her mommy and daddy are. Addressing me, she pressed the point:
Mama, where are her mommy and daddy? How can she know where they are?
Everybody needs a mommy and daddy.
Her transference of anxiety about her own security was crystal
clear. I assured her that she was safe and that her daddy and I are here, but
shed heard in church about the hundreds of New York City children who
werent picked up from day care on Tuesday evening. Im
scared, she said, that things will change.
Im scared, too. But we parents have no choice but to carry
on, pushing our fears and tears aside as the present moment calls to us. As it
happens, Sept. 12, the day after the attack, was my daughters sixth
birthday. That morning I dragged myself away from the radio and television to
the grocery store to buy a cake mix and ice cream. That night we had her
relatives over for her request -- homemade pizza -- and birthday cake. She
opened her presents. We sang the happy birthday song, celebrating her young
life, pushing our grief and preoccupation aside for the time being.
I, too, have been searching for a tangible focal point. I found it
in a necklace Ive never worn before, a silver crucifix I unearthed from a
jewelry box on my dresser. Ive never chosen to wear that symbol so
publicly, because I believe it is my actions and words that should speak for
me. But Im wearing it now, for myself. I am using this symbol to ground
myself in a small, tangible way in the gospel values that I have decided
supersede even my deep-rooted American values. Im pledging my allegiance
to a Middle Eastern man who came to transform the world in peace and
nonviolence.
The night of the orphaned cat discussion, my necklace caught my
daughters eye. She touched it and to my great surprise, said,
Im glad hes still here, pointing to my heart under the
silver crucifix and her own, even though we cant see him.
Kris Berggren lives in Minneapolis.
National Catholic Reporter, September 28,
2001
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