Live For Them

On the left, a Ukrainian man who lost all his entire family pictured, murdered in a missile-strike by Russia.

On the right, a Palestinian man picking up the birth certificates for his 3-day-old twins when his wife and twins were murdered in a missile-strike by Israel.

All morning I haven't been able to shake the parallel fates of these two fathers. It adds another level of connection when I can simply look over to my healthy kids cheerfully playing, oblivious to such horrors.

My wife has a stressful job where she sees pretty crazy stuff. It helps keep her grounded. Nevertheless the "little things" can add up. So it's a common refrain for us to say, "At least our kids aren't in Ukraine or Gaza...Or Syria... Or Yemen..." and so on — and it's so unbelievably fucked that this happened at all because of propaganda and territorial conquest, something that we just can't seem to shake. That we cannot grasp that we're one people all on this planet just trying to work together. Isn't life hard enough as it is? Yet these psychopaths persist, From Sinwar to Putin to Netanyahu, and they continue to dupe masses to do the dirty work on their behalf.

Meanwhile there seems to be a clear double-standard and profound cognitive dissonance around the world in recognizing the tragedy of one of these over the other. I hope we can equalize our outrage for these and recognize that it's the innocent civilians caught in between who always suffer the most.

I don't know what more there is to say but what is already felt. I just don't know how a father can go on. I can only live for them and in some way or another make the world a little better.

Both men said economic hardship, political instability and crime had left them with little option but to abandon their native Nigeria. Africa's most populous country has longstanding issues of violence and poverty, and kidnappings are endemic.

Imagine being so desperate that you navigate oceans from atop a ship's rudder to seek a better life.

It's really no different than the hardships those from Central and South America go through in trying to find a better life in North America. Can't blame them one bit. I'd hope to have the courage to do something similar to improve the conditions for my own family.

Don't take for granted what you've got. Live For Them.

Yesterday I wake up early in the morning to my wife asking for help because our toddler just suddenly puked all over both my wife and herself in bed. My wife had gone into our kid's room to comfort her when she woke up in a coughing fit. Suddenly, projectile vomit.

So she has a stomach bug — big deal right? Get some fluids in her, let her watch cartoons, keep a bucket nearby and ride this sucker out. I'd be totally onboard with that except for some context:

She and I had been swimming in the pool nearly every day. Recently the pool's water quality dipped because we had our pool robot cleaner break, followed by a nasty storm that dumped a lot of debris in there. Finally the chlorine levels were dipping and I hadn't shocked the pool in a while. Not really thinking, we went swimming the day before. Swimming in a dirty, very warm, unsantized pool... Worse, she's jumping into the pool over and over again. Worse, I managed to fix the obstruction and get my cleaner working again, so it's kicking up more sediment from the floor.

So there I was, awoken by my frantic wife telling me that that my daughter is puking and my heart drops to the sense of dread. The entire morning I'm just a wreck, leaping to the worst conclusions: brain-eating amoeba. Why? Just recently I read a tragic story of a 2-year-old passing away from this nightmare and I thought it might now become my own. All it takes is the wrong drop of water up the nose.

Let me tell you, in the end even atheists get down on their knees and beg to some high power in moments of desperation so outside their control.

I can give my child the best diet for their health, protect them from the monsters in their room, and even most of the real ones out in the world... But I know the statistics on this thing are only just below rabies in terms of survivability. I was monitoring all the symptoms closely but I didn't want to tell my wife to make her panic until I was certain. I'm reading up every article I can find on this horror. Is the vomiting persisting? Does she have a worsening headache? Fever? All I could think of was that poor 2-year-old with tubes coming out of his mouth in the news article I read.

Mind you my wife is an experienced nurse who's seen some shit and is usually cool as a cucumber, but even her nursing senses were tingling at our daughter's strange behavior. After getting our daughter into the shower to clean up, she became incredibly lethargic and pretty non-responsive. Pukes again. I get my daughter out and take her down to watch her favorite cartoons, get a popsicle, snuggle up in blankies on the couch. Time to spoil her just to get some sort of familiar response out of our tough firecracker.... No luck. Worst, she seems confused. She's watching cartoons but with a sort of deadpan stare. I ask her an obvious question about who her favorite character is that would normally get a quick answer, but she responds slowly, "I don't know..." By this point, I was literally begging to come down with a stomach virus myself.

I started to track the frequency of her vomits... 10 minutes, 20, 20, 25, 30, 35... Then finally, 1.5 hours passed. Then 2 hours. She took a short 20 minute cat-nap and waking up began acting like her old self slowly while the vomiting completely stopped. Maybe she swallowed some pool water; she may have eaten something the previous day. Either way, she was feeling better and acting like her troll-like self. Apparently she was just plainly exhausted from lack of sleep and pain.

Moments like these help reset your perspective on what's important in life. Not like I didn't know before... But the doldrums of passing days leave you taking for granted things you think will always be there without question while your mind's attention wanders to more mundane crap.

So anyway... Life's not so bad.

Also that's the last time I slack on maintaining the pool.

Remarkable resilience and stoicism from these people. They didn't deserve any of this. Makes me appreciate the roof over my head.