The photos coming out of Ukraine are heart-breaking. A tank just randomly driving over the top of a vehicle as it drives down the street. Thousands of people huddled in the subways, Undetonated missiles in the streets. Two children, one holding a stuffed animal, the other with a toy rifle slung across his back.
For me, the child of an Air Force pilot who's plane went down in Vietnam, I feel like I'm experiencing some sort of PTSD. I flash back to that heart-broken child, refusing to go to school because Daddy dies while she was at school, so Mommy might die if she goes to school. Watching the names of those who had lost their lives scrolling at the end of the nightly news.
And the children....being a trauma-responsive educator, I think about what this invasion is doing to them. Their fear is so very real! I can't begin to imagine what it's like for them to hear the bombing and shelling. Wondering if they'll even have a home to go back to. Those poor babies,
So, for now, I pray. I pray for the children, who, like me, have lost a loved one. I pray for the families who have been displaced. I pray for the president of Ukraine, who is staying to fight, who said "I don't need to be evacuated! I need ammunition!" I pray for the U.S. troops that have been deployed to the region. I pray for the families of our military. Please let this madness stop!
