Salon - "Do you know what 'powerless' means?"

--snip--

Questions. I've been dogged by them for half a year now. I wake with questions, walk with questions, dream questions. My family is a question, this question: Do you know what powerlessness means?

I posed it to my daughter on the drive home from Fort Polk after we saw her mother for the last time. That was six months ago. Our car was alone on U.S. Highway 171 for long stretches, and the moon shone brightly on the miles of empty highway ahead of us. And I asked my daughter, "Do you know what 'powerlessness' means, baby?"

She was wondering why I was sullen and dejected, why I was silent. I explained that I felt powerless to control my life and ensure the safety of my family. I told her that hundreds and thousands of people would die in the war that her mother was being sent to.

I told her it would accomplish nothing and that hundreds of families would soon mourn dead husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers -- that families would end. I told her that war changes people. I told her I felt less safe, less secure, sacrificial.

--snip--

Man this stuff depresses me. :cry: Where's the Prozac emoticon?