Books and Friends

I have an old (as in for a long time) friend who I know is a friend indeed.  She lives thousands of miles away and I only see her once in a blue moon and yet when we are together, we fall right in step and back into that comfortable rut called companionship.  The most recent example was last June when I flew into her town for my niece's wedding and we met for lunch the first day I was there (after she kindly picked me up from the airport...Thanks!!)  After figuring out all the problems in the world, delving into politics and then examining our own issues (those shall remain nameless) we had finished up lunch and then that true friend said to my wondering ears, "How about we go wander around the bookstore?"  Two peas in a pod, I tell you.

She let me show her all the books I loved, and then I let her for only half the time show me her favorite books, thanks for being patient, Friend!  I recalled that a book I had read about was just up her alley (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a "parody novel" by Seth Grahame-Smith.) and she grabbed that and I ran across a book that had been dogging me for a little while...  First They Killed My Father:  A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung (Harper Perennial, 2000).  I picked that up looking for something to wile away the time as I had a day or so on my own before the wedding.  That was the last we saw of each other but we parted ways happy to have an enticing book under our arms and a good memory of some time together to boot.

The book was eye-opening of course, yet another reminder of how much life I have missed outside my own bubble.  Was I sleeping when all world events occured?  From 1975-1979 Cambodia was turned upside-down, more lives were tortured and lost than can be conceived and Pol Pot probably among the most atrocious of leaders ever to be present on the world stage.  I am sure that my mother wisely kept the news to herself since I was only between the ages of 4-8 during this time, but holy moly, how come we don't talk much about this history in school??  We learn and study about the Holocaust (with very good reason), but also need to spend time examining the lives of people like this maybe to prevent other suffering around the world.  I don't want to guess why one horrific history is laid bare while another is virtually ignored.  The same thing is happening with Darfur...no one talks much about it, yet should.  Politically, any solution I may have is naive, I am sure, but shouldn't we be more aware??  Just a thought.

First They Killed My Father is the memoir of a young girl who at the age of five was evicted from her home with her family, forced to walk mile after mile to a meager existence in a hut, hide her father's connection to the previous government, enslaved to produce food for the regime, watch her family disappear, some die terrible deaths, and was forced to join a child's army.  That is only the surface!  How can one ever move on from a nightmare like this?  Somehow, she has as she emerges from this horror story to tell it to anyone who will read.  Walking around with a history like this in one's heart with very little understanding or publicity to elicit concern or compassion has got to be a heavy burden.  

Thank you, Loung Ung, for telling your story.  Thank you for entering into my bubble of comfort and giving me new insight into the human will to survive and into the depths to which evil will go when left unchecked.  The only question left is, what can little me do to reach out to a world that needs more compassion, and more hope offered?  We should never be bored with how much there is to accomplish in bettering this world.