What madness is this?

I sat down this morning.
My coffee was hot and my slippers warmed my cold toes.

I sat down and I decided to catch up on the happenings of the world.
I've been living for so many weeks in a lovely little bubble planet... and I said to myself-
"Suz- it's time to catch up on what's been going on in the big wide world.."

I sat down this morning and I turned on the TV.
As the news anchor spoke and the images flashed before me, my fingers curled around my now cooling coffee cup.
As the anguish and the monumental heartache was communicated from distant, bloodstained shores... I sat.

I sat in silent disbelief- I mean, why?
Why?
Why?

We fought cancer.
An insidious and evil terrorist that tormented and wreaked havoc on healthy cells. Invading and overtaking until the cancerous cells were the ruling majority.
We fought cancer and we battled long and hard against a foe that we could name.

What is this madness- that invades our society in cruel and malicious means.
Worse than any cancerous cell.
Unnamed and masked behind the labels of religiosity and fundamental belief hierarchies.

Today and tomorrow, the families of those who were slain by this rogue madness will prepare themselves to say that final farewell.
They have had no preparation.
No last, long lingering looks as the life of their beloved slowly ebbed away.
They have had no discussions by the fireplace as the last moments crept closer- conversations about what life without their physicality would be like.
No.
This madness... worse than a cancerous cell... is a cruel and heartless menace.

And this madness is not merely confined to the headlines of today.
It's everyday.
It's 310 dead in Baghdad two weeks ago when a bomb ripped through a market place.
Madness.
It's the Syrian crisis.
A madness too heavy for comprehension.
It's the unknown and relentless attacks that plague this planet.
And closer to home the madness edges and dips her toes in our pleasant waters.
We push it back and refuse to admit that we, the luckiest of all lucky countries are amongst those who will fall prey to this... to this madness.

I know grief.
She is my friend and my worst enemy.
And I felt her sigh as I sat this morning.
I heard the woe in her voice as she whispered of broken hearts that are scattered across the face of this planet- broken because of a madness.

I sat this morning and watched a world turned upside down by madness.
And my heart ached for them.
For us.
For me.

And my thoughts turned, as a mother's thoughts always will, to the children that are mine.
To the world that they are entering into- bright eyed and full of the potential to be anyone and do anything.
And I felt a moment of bitter sadness. A sadness that was carried by the weight of a world turned mad.
And then, because it's who I am and it's how I am wired to process- I hoped.
I hoped.
In the face of hopelessness.
In the harsh glare of madness- I hope.

Hope won't disappoint.
It can't.
It is the fervent belief that things will be ok.
That, despite and regardless of how truly bottom of the barrel this world just might get, there will be a glimmer of good.
I hope.
I hope that the families of the slain will find peace.
Peace in the midst of chaos.
That is a beautiful, hard fought for peace.
It is a war-weary peace.

Hope- an expectation that there will be beauty in the midst of chaos.

If I have discovered anything on this journey of the long goodbye to him- it is this...
Hope matters.
Looking forward with expectation, even in the darkest and wildest of storms- it matters.
Looking to a day that is bright with laughter and love, even while death and heartache abounds... well that matters most.

I don't have a solution.
Or even a reason for this madness.
I have only this- a glimmer of hope.
A sliver of hope that my children will know a world where beauty lives and flourishes.
Because if we lose hope- well, then we lose the war.