Neda

I've been out of town for two weeks and today was the day I planned to catch up on stacks of mail and pay bills. Instead I spent the majority of the day watching CNN. I couldn't change the channel because I couldn’t believe what was happening in IRAN or to a young woman identified as Neda.

I watched shocking amateur cell-phone video of Neda covered in blood. A sniper had shot her. All who watched, and there were millions of us, bore witness to the horrific images of her music teacher frantically trying to keep her alive. I am haunted by the image of this girl slipping from life before our very eyes. I have two daughters and my heart hurts for this family. Their pain would be more than I could bear.

I have an image of women in the Middle East that right or wrong is my perception of women in that region. These women are repressed and mere pawns of men that do little to advance their place in the world. They are most often draped from head to toe in black, sometimes with only their eyes showing. What I watching for days on CNN does not match that image. There are so many brave young women risking their lives over there. They are wearing black but their hands hold rocks or their arms are raised in defiance. They march in step with men with whom they share one thing in common; they want to change their future. That was something I never expected to see. It's easy to dismiss these people. It's easy to think they're all nuts or terrorists or enemies of America but if you've been watching TV or following twitter or Facebook you can't think that way anymore. How different are they from us? They want what we want...to be free, to have a voice.

I have such respect for the Iranians but more specifically the women. I respect their courage. They are so young, so hopeful. Their adult lives are just beginning like Neda's should have been. There is a history in Iran of horrible things happening to those who stand up to the government. They disappear; they're picked up and put away for decades or worse they are murdered like Neda. I see in them something that touches my soul. We have common ground. Don't we all want to love, live a full life and be mourned when we die? Neda, who represents so many others, should not have died. She was murdered and we all saw it. We saw her teacher trying to save her. We saw her take her last breath.

My daughter told me this morning she had trouble sleeping last night so she put on the TV; she watched what was going on in IRAN. She saw Neda die and she said she couldn't stop crying. I know exactly how she feels.