a million deaths is a statistic"
It's said to be a quote of Stalin. There might be evidence the saying already existed before that in some form though. Who knows. It's the truth though, no matter how horrific it may seem and how cruel, crazy and malicious it is for people to say this when they actually use it as a good reason or opportunity to commit mass murder.
It's so true though. But I've been chewing on this one and after today I understood why. Why it must be like this, it has to be like this. There is no other way.
Today Elian and me went to the farewell of a sister of one of our students. Forever 21. However beautiful and appealing the idea might be, we may all rejoice in the fact that we are not and will not be "forever 21". In one hour I got an insight in the person who had been, her ability to enjoy every minute she had been given and the influence she had on people around her, the emptiness, the sense of loss she was leaving behind. A family torn with grief. All in all It was a very beautiful ceremony not only giving insight into her personality, but also in her fighting spirit and in the bravery of her as well as her entire family.
And then it struck me. This has to be why this saying is just so right and why it HAS to be like that. Every person's loss is a tragedy. Not only for the person struggling, fighting to live, but also for the people around them. It's an enormous horror, a devastation and you don't wish it upon anyone. No one. We were at the farewell and it hurt. If this is how one person's death feels like, the amount of people dying from cancer every hour, every day, every month and every year.... There's a world of pain. It's incomprehensible. It would effectively destroy you if you would be able to feel all that hurt, that devastation, that pain. It's too much. "It's a self preservation thing".
So if we could see cancer as a person. As a dictator... His death toll would surpass all the greatest! I'll give him (yes, I made cancer a he, is that wrong?) that he seems to be indifferent to age, race, gender and wealth. But what would we be doing then, if this were a person going about crazily, randomly killing off people? Would we bring back military service, send sons and daughters into battle? Or would we accept it's ubiquitous presence and say "it's too big for us" or "we have been fighting too long and too often already". I don't think so. It doesn't numb down. We would carry on and end like David against Goliath. We have to. That's why we're riding our bikes up that bloody mountain. A looooot of times in one day. With a looooot of people. And when we do this with enough people having our backs, it will make a difference, it will count and in the end we will make it.
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