Three of the contacts in my e-mail address book have yet to realize that the Age of Forwards is dead. All three are relatives, and they tend to take some strong political stances that I don’t share, so for the sake of staying on good terms with my family at large, I usually delete these forwards without a glance. Today, however, two of them sent the same e-mail, and I made the mistake of reading it:
“Saturday, May 8, 2010 is WALK NAKED IN AMERICA DAY!
If a Muslim male looks upon a naked woman, other than his wife, he must commit suicide. In an effort to help weed out neighborhood terrorists, all women in America are asked to walk out of their house at 1:00pm, completely naked, and circle their neighborhood block for one hour.”
I felt sick, perhaps even more than I did a few weeks ago when that Facebook status was making the rounds. You probably saw some variation of it: “Dear God, I noticed you’ve been taking my favorite celebrities, and I just wanted you to know that Obama is my favorite president.”
But this isn’t a post about politics. This is about death.
~~~
Yesterday, a woman I had never met passed away. Her husband was one of my university classmates, but I hadn’t kept up with his life until last week when their story spread among my circle of acquaintances. She was six months pregnant with their fourth child when she had to undergo an emergency operation to remove cancerous spots from her lungs. She went into cardiac arrest. The baby was delivered healthy, albeit extremely premature, but my schoolmate’s wife slipped away after a few days of desperate attempts to save her life.
I did not know this woman personally, and from what I’ve heard about her, we would not have had a lot in common. However, I joined the thousands of friends and supporters hoping, praying for a miracle, and I now grieve her death along with them. Her children will grow up without her goodnight kisses. Her husband will face the difficult decisions ahead alone. Everyone who loved her, everyone who would have come to love her, every person she would have touched along the corridors of a full-term life is now bereft. Nothing about this is remotely funny.
I think of our next door neighbors in the States, a married couple with a young son and a taxi business. We swapped power tools, shared watermelon in the backyard, and tried together to help a neighborhood boy caught in a tragic situation. They gave us Natalie’s first bicycle. The husband mowed our lawn along with his. They also happened to be devout Muslims. If we categorized them as terrorists for their belief in Allah, we would deserve to be categorized as Crusaders for our belief in God. However, prejudice is probably a reality they have learned to put up with a long time ago.
But to joke about forcing our next-door neighbor to commit suicide? To turn the idea of leaving his son fatherless, his wife widowed, and his friends brokenhearted into some kind of patriotic comedy? To quip about tricking God into offing the president? To slap an animated gif onto a death wish and call it funny? It makes me see stars. That professed Christians can be not simply callous but malicious about other people’s lives shocks, saddens, and enrages me all at once, and I have to say… sentiments like that help me understand where a terrorist might find motivation in the first place.
