Friday, 25 July 2008

which is not final

We spent several years working in Bosnia after the end of the war-1996 onwards and it gave me some of the most moving experiences of my life- uplifting and joyous as well as downright shocking and horrific.
I have been reminded of that time again with the arrest of Karadjic recently and listened to an report from the BBC's Andrew Hensen from Postichari and Szrebrenica.
He describes a woman of my age has travelled from Sweden, to visit the graves of her husband and seven year old son who were killed by the Serbs during the war. She cannot be sure how many of her other male relatives are buried there because they have not recovered complete bodies.
The sign that explains what you are seeing says that 8,372 people are buried there and then adds "which is not final"
There is something in this that I would like to look at, something here that is not the horror of the thing- and yet it is. What she expected to get out of life, and her son's life and now, she has- what???A nice red umbrella to shelter her from the drizzle as she visits their graves.

One of the awful things about death and pain and sorrow is that maybe the only thing to know is that it is incomprehensibly awful, and yet life goes on around it, beyond it, in spite of it- the clocks do not stop, the birds do not stop singing, the sun rises again, people buy coffee and sit and talk in cafes, people rent flats and practice alternative medicine.
Hmm don't know where this is going
Pause for now.

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