A Woman's Worst Nightmare
Cindy Sheehan
December 10, 2006
Area: New York
On Friday, December 8th, after 4 and long days, the jury in the trial of the "Pink 4," which includes me, Medea Benjamin, Gold Star Aunty Missy Beattie and Reverend Patty Ackerman, finally received our case for deliberation at about 2:30 PM. The judge summoned us back into the courtroom at 6:15 PM and we were excited for the verdict, only to learn that the jury had not yet reached their verdict and we would be staying in NYC until at least Monday when the jury would continue its deliberations on the 5 counts for each of us.
While we were awaiting our fates, we four dangerous peace women, found a copy of the New York Post which seems to me like a glorified National Enquirer. I was leafing through the rag when I saw a big picture of Laura and George. Laura was wearing one of the ugliest dresses I have every seen, and there, inset above the picture of the First Lady and her offensive husband, were photos of three other women wearing the same dress as Laura! Perusing the article I discovered that going to a party and having even one woman wearing the same dress as yourself is bad enough, but going to a party (especially in ones own home) and discovering three other women wearing your same dress is "a woman's worst nightmare!"
To begin with, I would think that someone married to GW would have enough problems to worry about and even more horrendous nightmares then sharing a hideous dress with someone else. Being the wife of the world's number one terrorist would give me pause. However, I just want to let the New York Post, Laura and the three other women who are in the one-half of one percentile of the country who are in George's "base" that are able to own an 8400.00 Oscar de la Renta, that showing up at a party with 3 women wearing the same dress is not a "woman's worst nightmare," and even though it has never (and will never) happen to me and I have never walked in their Prada slippers, had a polo pony go lame or known such humiliation, I suspect that I am, and will be living, a "woman's worst nightmare."
Yes Laura, et al, there are worse things than what happened at the White House Christmas party this past week. Ask the 25 American mothers who learned that their sons were killed this past week for your husband's lies and to put obscenely expensive and over the top (not to mention, unflattering) clothes on your backs. Ask the people who are being slaughtered in Iraq and can't even go buy groceries or attend services in their local places of worship without fearing being blown to a million tiny pieces bombs. Ask the prisoners who have been tortured at such gulags as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Ask the millions of people who go to bed hungry or cold in our very own country every night while you are horrified that someone else found your dreadful dress appealing enough to plunk down over eight grand.
Before April 04, 2004, my greatest fear and nightmare was that one day I would have to bury one of my children. My children were and are my life. If one of them was late, or didn't give us a timely phone call if they were out and not home in time, my heart would race and I would fear the worse. But the fears don't even approach reality. If a parent has not buried a child he/she cannot even come close to imagining what it is like. The actuality and reality of the unnatural and disordered act of a child dying before his/her parents is practically inconceivable.
I have nightmares every night. They should be good dreams. Every night, I toss and turn and dream of Casey at every age. from darling baby, to sweet toddler, to gangly boy-teen, to handsome soldier man. The dreams are not good or reassuring, because in every dream I know that I am experiencing my happy past and I have to live a dim future that is absent one of my children. However, Casey, and hundreds of thousands of other humans killed by BushCo, have no future and I wake up many times each night missing my boy so badly and aching for all the moms in the world whose lives have been upended by the villains in designer labels who yucked it up over the exploits of "Barney the wonder-dog" at the White House last week. I often marvel at how one person can endure so much pain and longing.
I wish all I had to worry about was a stupid dress and innocuous parties. But on that lovely, yet horrid, Palm Sunday in 2004, I was forced by BushCo to experience what is truly a "woman's worst nightmare," and due to their policies, I am, by far, not alone in this unrelenting suffering.
I am surviving a "woman's worst nightmare," and all I do, I do for other mothers and their children.
Time and again, I will struggle to keep our families intact and to protect them from the ruling elite of this world who think nothing of killing our children and destroying the world to be able to have their grand and glorious celebrations and enjoy their extremely ill- gotten booty.
No one wants my nightmares.
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