Collateral Damage

I first used this term, in a personal way, when my husband was asked to leave a church we had joined as a family after four years. No clear reasons were given, but he was in a an inner circle with the senior pastor, and an email he helped to circulate was apparently anathema. The next day when he went into the office, his key card did not work.

We had not directly contributed to any ounce of the brewing crisis and its explosive effects, but here we were, suddenly jobless and spiritually it seems, homeless.

It hurt, deeply, being collateral damage.

One is shocked, feel powerless, and sent into a tailspin of confusion.

Before this, I mostly referred to the horrendous visage from Marvel movies, lamenting that each heroic act it seemed resulted in so much wreckage. Those were things, and I already found it hard to stomach.

It is June 24th and there’s supposedly a ceasefire for the fears of a Third World War after the Israel-US-Iran show of fire power. Every drone and bomb that either hit or missed leaves in its wake the stinking smoke of damage. Years of diplomacy, decades of labour, burgeoning dreams and hopes of young lovers and growing families. No aspect of it can escape the damage.

This should sicken us. Not stir us to online vitriol and virtue-signalling.