My daughter is nearing five, and we’ve had many conversations about causes of death and its inevitability. Until now, we haven’t dipped into the topic of death without logic and the cause and effect chain involving brutality and hatred rather than illness.

Yesterday was the first time I had to explain that a friend of the family had been killed in Iraq. Trying to choose my words put me square into my politics, which I try to keep to a minimum when explaining life to my child. I try to speak with more faith in a good world than I actually hold. This one was set to fail from the get-go.

“How did he die, Mama?”

“Someone in an army shot him with a gun, someone who was afraid and trying to protect himself from another country’s army in his country. The different armies that are trying to stay safe.”

Deaf ears.

“A gun? That is so mean.” She shook her head, scowling.

“Sometimes a whole country and the people in charge of keeping it safe feel that what the other country is doing is dangerous,” I try to explain. “So our country sent an army to Iraq.” I was making myself sick with this line of talk.

She interrupted me, “Even if you want to keep me safe Mama, don’t kill anybody.” She started to cry.

Dicey.

I feel fierce in my belief that I could take down, with bare hands or any available heavy object, anyone who came after my kid. Here she was asking me to promise I wouldn’t. Preschool Mahatma, wiser yet again than her bumbling mom.

She threw me a pure example of what I believe my politics to be, and what I find, yet again, is that motherhood has trashed my certainty about what I would do.

I do still feel morally superior to the president, but that bar is set at curb height. My daughter’s a tougher one to live up to.

By Avvy Mar

Labels: Avvy Mar

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