spare pair of striped pajamas

*please note: this blog contains a spoiler for the movie "boy in the striped pajamas", so please don't read on if you haven't seen the film.



even though you clearly see it coming, it doesn't soften the blow.

bright-eyed innocence crushed in a net of evil should always feel like an unwelcome slug in the gut.

my mind scrambles for more meaning, so i google to see if this is a "true" story, as in taken from an actual event. the context, of course, is real and the players were put in place in actual circumstances but the ending was the author's choice.
just ever so briefly if you haven't seen it-- a german boy's nazi father is "promoted" to commandant of a concentration camp. "papa" doesn't give either his wife or children the details of where they are going, so the young boy, bruno, thinks the camp is a farm. he has been forbidden to explore but as young, bored boys will do, he does. upon arriving at the "farm", he sees a boy sitting near the barbed wire fence with which he soon becomes friends- the jewish boy himself doesn't understand his situation; but he knows this is no farm. as the story unfolds, bruno's mother finds out the truth and slowly descends into a sort of madness, his sister embraces hitler youth and bruno builds his days around his new friend.

one knows that when you enter a movie, there are times when you suspend your sense of logic. that is the magic of film-- it brings you places you wouldn't have otherwise been able to be. one critic of the film thought it too much, though, to believe that bruno, at age eight, would've been so naive and not figured out his situation.
is that so hard to believe that in the age before show-all television, violent video games and the internet, an eight year old boy might find it hard to deduce that the acrid odor that is spewing from the distant chimneys contains the ashes of his new friend's grandparents, or that a little boy like himself would be put in a work camp when he had done nothing wrong? None of these things makes "sense", so why should he "figure" this out?
in the end, bruno full of an eight year old's sense of loyalty, bravado and curiousity, answers his friend's new call of distress- his father his missing after the last work detail. bruno grabs a large sandwich and a shovel and digs under the fence, dons a set of "striped pajamas" schlomo brings and they are off to search for his father.
unfortunately, efforts to enforce the final solution are stepped up and bruno and schlomo are rounded up with a large group of men and brought to take a "shower". by the time bruno's parents discover where he has gone, he is dead.
how to sort this sadness? what is the greater one? the innocent boy from outside of the fence dying in a brave act, the innocent boy on the inside of the fence dying in a senseless act or the evil that knows no parameters-- the hate of men?

putting on the spare pair of striped pajamas changed bruno's fate; but he chose to wear them as a symbol of solidarity with his friend's cause. perhaps this isn't a cause for sadness but a call to hope. in the midst of great evil, there is the hope of a friend.

god gives reason to go on

the jews have a saying that a birth is god's way of saying the world should go on. (paraphrase)
sometimes, when taking out two small, brown dogs for their nightly relief, i look at the moon hanging in between the shadowy oaks, and think... every man or woman since the beginning of time has looked at this very same moon. despite wars, or death, recession or prosperity, the moon's ethereal glow comes out every night. every single night.
despite evil, wrongdoers, or loss babies are born. new little lives wipe the slate clean and say there is a reason to hope. god puts his divine stamp of approval on the process and we are all changed by it.
an email this morning updated my soon-to-arrive grandson's progress. my daughter, bethany's doctor had said that her body was definitely gearing up into birth mode. measuring 41 weeks, any day or night, the moon will rise and baby wyatt will change the world as our family knows it. change the world as babies have done time ad infinitum.
his warm, little co-ordinated nest has been aptly feathered. friends, family and co-workers have chronicled his journey with love and gifts.
and this is how it all should be.
last night, my son, john and i went to target. killing time as john shopped, i pushed my cart up and down the aisles. buying nothing in particular, i dawdled over labels and sales. there was another woman tracking the same maze as i was. one young baby in her cart and three tagging along behind. it was that odd hour of the evening when it was possible that supper hadn't yet been eaten or the winding down from the day begun. one of the bitty ones was whining. a soft whirr of discontent ebbed and flowed from his tiny mouth. then began the strings of obscenities... not just your "shut up", but threats of slaps and punches and shut your f***ing mouth before i do. i only heard the boy's complaints because i was so close. unlike some revolutionary rages others do, this was a "i'm hungry, wet, thirsty, tired" cry. the woman, becoming more agitated by his continuance, sank darker into her methods of how she would deal with him. most likely afraid of repercussions if she actually carried any of them out in target, she kept her abuse verbal. at least there. at least until the car.
the other little soldiers, jacket sleeves skimming the floor, tiny boots scuffing along, seemed to shut out her voice as bright things at their eye-level distracted them.
i think children carry their own message from god, despite the adults that would snuff it out.
i'm looking forward to you, wyatt. keeper of hope. make us all better people.