Letters of Love

 It breaks me. It kills me from the inside. Everything that is happening in the world outside. 

I am so helpless, I cannot even express my pain, fear, or despair in any form or manner. 

No social media venting - lest it impairs my alien status and cause any future disruptions (selfish, I know)

No honest-to-goodness open conversations because I can never know who is in favor and who is not.

People can be two-faced. Feel one thing inside, but be a silent manipulator so they can know what your true feelings are.

I can put up with most things. I am strong. I have made myself stronger. But senseless loss of life, especially those that have just started - this I cannot bear.

Many, many years ago, in a similar world, I felt so helpless and desperately searched for ways to help. 

Money - I did not have, to save any lives. 

Words - I had plenty. Words that could bring love and a new ray of hope, and that - I was very happy to share and spread. 

Exactly what I did. Through an extensive network, I wrote and got letters delivered. To children who had no choice in the life they were being made to live. Lives torn apart by war and destruction. Living in rubble. Waiting for what felt like eternity, for something to satisfy their hunger.

Not just letters but tiny gifts of hope. The tiniest squishy heart with the words 'HOPE' written on it. A keychain with a little umbrella that said 'You are protected'. A tiny notepad with words of motivation and inspiration. These gifts made their way to the destination through different dedicated volunteers who braved all adversities and made sure they stayed committed to the cause - Bringing some hope and love to those who suffer in silence, for choices they did not make, for reasons they do not know. 

Every time I wrote a letter, my directions were clear. Give this to a child. Old enough to read. They need to know that there was someone in the world out there who cared dearly for them. That there was someone who did not want them to live life this way. Someone who wants to let them know that one day, it will all be okay. The pain will end. The destruction will cease. Memories can be made. Laughs can be shared. Tears can be stopped. Food can be plentiful. Cold will not be intolerable. Clothes can be fresh. Skin can be clean. Wounds can be healed. Blood will not be seen. Sirens can be fun. Alarms can mean a new start, not just another end. Home will feel like home again. Love will prevail.

And in return, I always got a picture. Of the recipient holding my letter and gift. With the biggest smile on their face. The smile was maybe for the camera. Or the smile could have been for my letter. Or the gift. Or just the fact that this was something out of the ordinary they were used. But nevertheless, a smile. 

For years, I held on to those pictures and smiles. Never the same. Always someone new. Someone different. 

But one day, I decided to let them all go. Because it killed me not knowing what happened to them after that smile. Did they make it? I made promises I could not keep. I had prayed desperately for all the promises I had made. Did god hear me? Did my little recipients get to live my promise? 

I never knew, and one day I stopped wanting to know. Not because I didn't want to. Because I had no way to. They didn't have an address. The letters I wrote, and the gifts I gave, were randomly delivered by volunteers at refugee camps that kept popping up all over the war-torn regions. The volunteers moved on. They never revisited the same camp. And the refugees moved on. They shifted camps too. 

Those little boys and girls had been a very important part of my life for years, even though I was part of theirs only for the tiniest bit of a day. A day that possibly would have been erased by many, many days of war and attacks since. 

I didn't want those days back again. And yet here we are. Again. 

I cry for those little children every single day. But that's all I am capable of doing now. Cannot pick up the pen to write those letters again. Because this time, I am not strong enough for that. I am weak. 

This is unfair - to all those lives that could have been. Should have been. 

With a bleeding heart and tearful eyes, all I can say is - I love you. My little children of war. 

A war that never should have been. Nowhere in this world.

I pray for you. Everyday.