Number One Fan

Could it have been foresight that my mother crewel embroidered this sign for me? Could she have known that I would turn out to know nothing at all? Or did she hope to inspire me to become imaginative with this subliminal message greeting me daily for three decades.

Perhaps, she simply fancied the design and while stitching she day dreamed of my sisters and I sitting together in a home made tree house discussing and debating the worlds hard questions.

Regardless of how it came about, this motto has become part of my design. My imagination is in full swing - for better or worse!

And to this day, Mom continues to be my imaginations number one fan. She invites it in, asks how it's doing, makes it chocolate chip cookies. (She even let's it lick the spoon.)

It always comes home with an inflated head; feeling like it can do anything.

Mother's Day Proclamation - 1870

by Julia Ward Howe

Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God -
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.

Faithful Elephants

When Annalise turned the corner she had tears in her eyes. Since she is fourteen, it took me off guard. I looked at my younger daughter for a translation.

"She just read 'Faithful Elephants'. I tried to tell her it'd make her cry."

Samantha and I had read "Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People and War" by Yukio Tsuchiya the previous evening.

Nancy, our own personal librarian at the Downtown Kansas City Public Library, suggested it to us. She warned us that though it is wrapped up as a picture book, it was a tough one.

In the preface "To the Readers", Chieko Akiyama conveys his hope that the reading of this book help bring about "seeds of peace and war prevention will be sown."

By the first few pages of the story we were heartsick for John, Tonky and Wanly.

During WWII, these three elephants were of many killed by Ueno Zoo keepers who thought that IF any of the animals survived the bombings they would be loose, scared and therefore dangerous.

For whatever reason, the keepers were unable to poison the elephants as originally planned. John, Tonky and Wanly were starved to death.

"Over two weeks later, Tonky and Wanly were dead. Both died leaning against the bars of their cage with their trunks stretched high in the air, still trying to do their banzai trick for the people who once feed them."

Our sorrow extended to the elephants Japanese Keepers who were ordered to carry out this death plan.

At the end of the story Samantha had one burning question,

"Was the Ueno Zoo bombed?"

Other words, did John, Tonky, Wanly and their zoo friends have to die?

We took the question to the web. Google's only response - Hap Halloran's, WWII Prisoner of War, web page.

'Then Hap was moved to Ueno Zoo in Tokyo where he was a prisoner in an animal cage and tied to the front bars in his lion cage so civilians could march by and view a B-29 flyer. He was naked and black from non-washing and hair all over his face. Hap lost 90 lbs. and was covered with open running sores from flea-bed bug bites.'

After being left with these two brutally honest contradictions of war, I have one simple burning question:

What if Samantha, Annalise and myself . . . along with you . . . extended our hands out of our caged thinking and fostered the growth of seeds of peace in memory of Tonky, Wanly, John and Hap . . . and the googol of other victims of wars?

I am Brave

When the softness leaves his eyes . . .

I tell myself,

"Deep Breathe Girl."

When his truths sucker punch me . . .

I tell myself,

"I will be okay."

When I can't find the courage to even get up to leave . . .

I tell myself,

"I am brave."

After days like today . . .

I tell myself,
"HOLY SH@$."