Sydney's Lament
By Tim Barger
Ancient wisdom, stretching back before the time of Abraham to the
beginning of civilized man, demands 40 days to mourn one's beloved. My beloved wife,
Sydney Leigh Fate, passed away 40 days ago today and, though I find it awkward to make
public my private loss, I believe that she would want me to articulate this lament and
share the lesson of my grief.
It is a simple lesson. The pain of bereavement is universal. Our tears
release a flood of vivid memories about so many past joys and simple moments that we now
recognize as bliss. We beseech mute mercy, for but just one more moment together and
collapse into depression as hope turns into cold despair before the power of death's
finality. The hardest heart could not possibly wish this misery on another blameless
person.
Yet, our leaders appear unconcerned about the coming destruction of the
innocent to punish a handful of guilty. Have they no hearts? Has George Bush never wept
hopelessly at the grave of a loved one? Has Mr. Cheney ever walked away from a funeral in
stunned contemplation of the tragedy of joy cut short? Apparently not, for these men
intend to poison the reef to kill a shark and unleash our mighty legions upon an already
abject and abused populace to abet their transient hallucination of empire.
They seek to make us complicit by deluding with contemptible
euphemisms. The death of an American helicopter pilot is to be called, "A valiant
sacrifice for freedom." The decimation of penniless villagers in an Iraqi marsh will
be labeled, "Collateral damage. So sorry." The helpless descent into awful grief
by the chopper pilot's young wife in Kansas is balanced by that of a dozen desolate Arab
women, bereft of hope after a clever cluster bomb has ripped apart their husbands and
sons. Not once during the preamble to this planned invasion have I heard any senior
official allude to the lives of the Arabs and Americans that will be wasted in this
adventure. Our leaders use a false, bloodless algebra to calculate gain.
Abraham Lincoln, our greatest American, presided over the most violent
slaughter of human life ever witnessed on this continent. Despite what he felt was the
tragic necessity of his resolve, he never failed to carry in his heart the weight of the
enormous suffering it inflicted on both sides of the Mason Dixon Line. It was never,
"Them or us." He knew the cost to all and bore its burden as if he were the only
pallbearer at his mother's funeral. He wrote letters of condolence to Confederate widows.
Even as this great man mourned the tragedy of his duty, the halls of
government swarmed with influence peddlers, grifters, the lackeys of industrialists and
incipient carpetbaggers anxious to profit from the fruitful harvest of war. Today the
scene is much the same. Claques of sycophants praise Mr. Bush as a great leader; some call
him one of the greatest presidents ever.
Yet from my perspective, wounded and raw as an egg without a shell, I
can only see in the invasion of Iraq my private grief for lovely Sydney Leigh senselessly
multiplied ten thousand fold or more. I don't see bold, patriotic American leadership. I
see craven politicians eager to distract us from their failures, at the price of
contaminating our one hallowed and enduring legacy to mankind - we are the home of the
free and the land of the brave.
I see neither freedom nor bravery in their intentions. I can only see
fools that would kill the flock to slay the wolf.
Coutesy of and © by Tim Barger. The writer, the son of
Thomas C. Barger, former President and CEO of the Arabian American Oil Company (Aramco),
spent a considerable part of his growing up years in Saudi Arabia.
Editor's Note: After this article, Sydney's Lament, was published, Tim
Barger sent the article to his friends with a note from which I extract the following:
"Should this article in some modest way move you to contemplate
the human cost of this seemingly inevitable invasion of Iraq, please feel free to share it
with another. Though she is now gone, Sydney left us with a gentle reminder to bring joy
to life, to persevere despite adversity and, above all, to cherish the ones we love. She
was also never shy about speaking up, loudly if necessary. We each have a voice in our
country's destiny and if enough of us speak out perhaps we will be heard in the halls of
government."
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