I've been putting together these daily diaries for 30 days, which I'll now count as a month.
I first got the idea when lawnorder posted the diary, "This is what John Kerry did today." That diary featured several photographs, including this one, and generated a lengthy thread.
I encourage you to visit lawnorder's diary from that day if you haven't already seen it. And if you have, go back and spend some time there again. Many of the comments are among the most thoughtful, respectful, and moving I've seen.
Some of the others...not so much.
Many express the kind of grief and profound loss that you'd expect in a diary that features the photograph of a casket about to be lowered into its grave.
But the comments go beyond sadness for a single soldier, or for his family. Many see the quiet dignity of John Kerry's gesture and mourn for themselves, and the country, at the outcome of the election.
My daily postings for the last 30 days are based on my own reaction to lawnorder's diary and photos. I realized that beyond everything, war is sadness and grief.
So I resolved to feel that sadness and express that grief every day. I'm not a masochist, and I don't walk around in a perpetual state of sorrow. Who could?
But feelings are what make me human, and to not express those feelings is to not only deny being a person, but to turn my back on the people who suffer more directly. So these diaries have become a meditation based on image and word, a small way to share in the grief that too many others feel.
Once that grief finds voice, and sadness its expression, action follows.
Finally, I take great comfort in knowing that so very many of you here at dKos share these beliefs, and that you find ways to express and act on them. You sustain me.
witness every day