A 5 year old's grasp of terrorism

Hi all!

As a parent, it is always interesting to see how Yohanan (just over 5.5) understands things. I got home yesterday shortly after the deadly suicide-bombing at the French Hill intersection in northern Jerusalem. I would normally drive right past the site of the bombing (the main road between Jerusalem & Maaleh Adumim goes through the intersection; all the buses go that way) except that I cut through the Arab sections of eastern Jerusalem, go up one side of the Mt. of Olives & down the other & bypass French Hill completely. (People have told me that the route I take isn't safe but statistically it is much safer than the main road; it also has the advantage of being much quicker.)

When I got home, Wendy had put on the TV to watch about the attack. Naor was asleep but Yohanan was sitting there on the couch watching. The TV showed the devestated bus stop at French Hill, with debris everywhere.

Yohanan: "There was an attack?"

Me: "Yes, there was an attack."

Yohanan: "Why is it a mess?"

Me: "Because a very bad person had a bomb and it blew up and made a mess."

Yohanan: "They will clean it up?"

Me: "Yes, they will clean it up."

Yohanan: "They were killed?"

Me: "Yes, the bad person was killed but so were some good people."

The foregoing exchange must have got him thinking because a short while later as I was putting him to bed, he asked me, "Daddy, will we still be a family in Heaven?" I told him that we will ALWAYS be a family. He then said, "Naor is a good baby; I like him," and said how he misses his grandfather, Wendy's late father, "who is in Heaven," before nodding off to sleep.

Our boy!

Be well!

ssv

__________________
"Peace, peace to him that is far off and to him that is near." [Isaiah 57:19]

Eleanor of Aquitaine: Of course he has a knife. He always has a knife. We all have knives. It's 1183 and we're barbarians. How clear we make it. Oh, my piglets, we're the origins of war. Not history's forces nor the times nor justice nor the lack of it nor causes nor religions nor ideas nor kinds of government nor any other thing! We are the killers; we breed war. We carry it, like syphilis, inside. Dead bodies rot in field and stream because the living ones are rotten. For the love of God, can't we love each other just a little? That's how peace begins. We have so much to love each other for. We have such possibilities, my children; we could change the world. (From The Lion in Winter)