Sometimes in April

Sometimes in April is a movie I won't ever forget. One that will stick with me forever.

I ask myself tonight, what was I so busy doing in 1994 that I didn't even know that almost 1,000,000 human beings were slaughtered just because of their tribe in Africa?

I've never really been in touch with world events, but this is troubling to me. How could I miss this? It's like I lived on another planet or something.

Apparently, now the same thing is happening in Sudan and 400,000 people have been slaughtered.

More than 300,000 people died in the Tsumani this last December.

2800 people died in the World Trade Center attack.

But for some reason we respond with greater alarm the closer we are to identifying with the victims.

I can easily picture myself heading off to work in a major city, saying goodbye to my family, stopping for a diet coke on the way to work, riding up the elevator, everything a normal day, and then in a moments time everything changes forever.

I might even be able to picture myself vacationing in Asia when huge waves came up and others I was vacationing with died.

But I cannot picture myself living in a village in Africa and having my family slaughtered with machetes because I married someone of another tribe. It would be as ludicrous as if in our town, the Swedes decided to slaughter every Norweigen AND every Swede who had married a Norweigen.

And since I can't picture it, and since I've never been to Africa, and since it could never happen to me, it doesn't seem near the tragedy as the World Trade Center. The loss of 2800 human lives is a horrible tragedy, but the loss of a million lives ten years ago happened and I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW. I don't even remember hearing about it.

On September 11, 2001 at around 8 a.m. I was having an argument with my then 14 year old where I was saying something like, "I can't believe that at the age of 14 you will skip breakfast because there are no marshmallows in the cereal we have available." Our argument was interrupted by a call from my husband telling me to listen to the news . . .

All of our lives seemed to come to a screaching halt on that day and none of us will forget it.

But in 1994 nearly a million people were killed in a three month period of time and I DIDN"T EVEN KNOW.