{"id":199,"date":"2008-11-28T19:31:53","date_gmt":"2008-11-29T02:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=199"},"modified":"2008-11-28T19:35:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-29T02:35:00","slug":"a-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"A Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, before I tell you about the conversation, I want to tell you what a nice Thanksgiving we had with my mom and Mark. We have a lot to be thankful for, and thanks were given. It always pricks my heart a little to see Robin respond so strongly, so joyfully, to his extended family, because I know he’ll really miss them when they leave. I’ve become convinced that the modern American nuclear family is, well, a dumb<\/em> way to raise kids. It makes my life so much harder. It makes Robin’s life so much worse.<\/p>\n

And yet our own extended family is so scattered across the country, and I can’t see any way to knit them back together. Especially with this economy: I don’t know if we even have the option<\/em> of leaving the Bay Area any more. We’re pretty safe here in terms of knowing that Sam can always find a job. We wouldn’t have that safety in most other places.<\/p>\n

So, anyway, I’ve been watching with great gratitude Robin’s interactions with his loving grandparents, and thinking a lot about family, today as we saw Nanita and Marque\u00f1o off from the airport. Then in the late afternoon I nipped down to the little corner grocery on our block to buy a carrot for tonight’s turkey noodle soup. There’s a fellow there who often works the checkout that loves interacting with Robin. He’s a nice guy, one of the many Middle Eastern immigrants in our neighborhood, and that’s basically all I know about him.<\/p>\n

So we’re chatting as he rings up my carrots; I asked him about his Thanksgiving and he asked me about mine; he asked me where my boy was (napping with Daddy) and\u2014guessing, based on his warm and playful interactions with Robin\u2014I asked him if he had kids of his own.<\/p>\n

“I did,” he said, blinking back sudden tears. “I had a ten year old son. My wife, she was shopping in downtown Baghdad. They were both killed in a bomb.”<\/p>\n

I couldn’t say anything except “my God. I’m so sorry.”\u00a0 And he nodded and smiled and I stood, useless, and then repeated myself several times before I stumbled away.<\/p>\n

Now you can tell I’m Southern in upbringing because I have the strongest urge to bake him a casserole. I don’t know any other way of responding to such terrible grief. I know this has happened to so, so many families, but it hadn’t ever before happened to someone I know<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It feels so strange that I’ve known him for so many months\u2014I see him every week\u2014but I know so little about him. I don’t know his name. I wish I knew more, but I don’t want to intrude. This is all I know of his story:<\/p>\n

His family killed, he came from Baghdad to San Francisco, and he started over. He works long hours. He loves children.<\/p>\n

Now I can’t stop crying. What justifies this? Who can answer for it? What can be done to atone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, before I tell you about the conversation, I want to tell you what a nice Thanksgiving we had with my mom and Mark. We have a lot to be thankful for, and thanks were given. It always pricks my heart a little to see Robin respond so strongly, so joyfully, to his extended family, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/shannon.users.sonic.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}