A little boy wandered across the street the other day. He’s the new neighbor’s boy, about three years old, Mexican, and hopefully, doesn’t speak English. I say this because my husband’s reaction to him was rather… negative.
Chris didn’t yell at him, he just turned white and came inside after uttering a few choice phrases. He then began ranting about how the damned neighbors should take care of their damned children and that he didn’t want kids on his property and so on. He was visibly shaken in a way just a random child should not have caused. I listened and then I went outside and walked the little boy across the street giving him back to his now frantic mother who’d been inside yelling his name.
When the little boy looked up at me with those darling brown eyes as I coxed him to follow me I realized what was happening. See as a medic, Chris worked on everyone, including Iraqi children who’d been accidentally caught in the crossfire. That little round dark face with out of place black hair was too much, too close. Too many memories. Too many little faces.
We spoke later that day about it and Chris told me with a mostly horrified look on his face that he hated children. It was easier than loving them and knowing what had happened to so many. His mind was doing all it could to keep his heart from tearing. In turn mine bled for his because I knew it pained him to have to feel this way.
I know I say it a lot, but I just can’t imagine. I know the stories, some of which I will never repeat out of respect, but I can’t imagine how a man who has two beautiful young daughters and has been a wonderful step-father to my two boys can harbor such feelings and function as a father. It could be we have two adult kids and two teenagers but no little ones.
Chris’s mind tells him he ‘hates kids’. I know he hasn’t always. He described to me once ruining a uniform making cotton candy for the kids at a family day on base. He loved kids once upon a time. Now though, his strained smile at the laughter and antics of children betray his thoughts to me.
Things change. People change.
War changed Chris. It caused an MC Escher sort of compound around his core. I have learned the path inside, it’s easy now, but I’m afraid very few other people will be able to get past the many twisted stairwells and deadly guard towers and I’m realizing I’m still making my way gingerly along a path he’s setting out for me. Still learning, still watching him discover just how much his experiences in Iraq have changed who he is.
But, in the very same breath I say war changed Chris I know that change is possible. This is good. Change brings new opportunities to deal and heal.
War changed him which means he, as well as all of us, can change. We can change our approach and help those who need our help to change. He can change, too. Change is good even when at the time it sometimes feels awful. It’s still movement and movement is the only thing that keeps us from stagnating.
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