As saddened as I was by the terrorist bombing in Sultanahmet Square in Turkey last week, I also felt enormous relief. The bombing took place on a Tuesday; two of my children had been in Istanbul the Friday before.
When my daughters initially told me they were going to spend a week visiting each other and vacationing in Istanbul, I’d also had mixed feelings, which I kept to myself.
For one, I’m proud that my daughters both love one another, and are also good friends. But I’m sometimes quite jealous. While there was a brief period growing up when I wanted a pony, there was never a time I didn’t wish for a sister. I still do.
For another, the trip meant I could send gifts to the daughter working in the Republic of Georgia via the daughter from Brooklyn who carried a duffle with peanut butter, maple syrup and warm clothing.
Additionally, the choice of Istanbul was a validation of our parenting: we’d traveled to Turkey in 2001 on a memorable family vacation; Tim and I have only ourselves to blame for our children’s wanderlust and sense of adventure.
Whenever I told my friends the girls’ plans, they always sounded the alarm of terrorist danger, putting me in the position of allaying their fears as if those weren’t already my own. “Safer than a lot of places in America,” I said until I believed it. I don’t actually know if this is statistically true, but when a friend told me she was taking her young daughters to the mall in December, I managed not to blurt out, “Don’t go – it’s dangerous!”
The truth is, there’s danger everywhere. Some dangers we’re inured to – like driving a car, probably the single most dangerous thing any of us do. And some dangers we fear, like flying in airplanes – which is statistically safer than driving.
There’s little we can do about acts of terrorism, domestic or foreign, except to live fully and bravely in the face of fear in the short term.
In the long term, our best chance of ending terrorism is through a politics of peace, best practiced through democratic process guided by the ethic that is fundamental to all world religions and known universally as The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you.
I’m relieved my children are safe, but I’m also more acutely aware than ever that terrorism anywhere in the world touches us all.
