EDITOR'S LETTER
If you have followed our editor's letters over the past few weeks, you know they haven't been very happy. How could they have, considering the recent events. The Paris attacks of November 13 took the lives of 137 people in such a calculated, brute and unexpected way that it made the headlines all over the world, and still does. But looking back on the past 12 months we can only conclude that this particular event in only bringing up the rear of what is a long list of terrorist actions in 2015 that include kidnappings, shootings, (suicide) bombings, stabbings and hostage takings. Since January more than people 7,385 lost their lives to useless acts of violence, the Baga massacre in Nigeria that happened in January being the absolute front runner.
It is December and the Holidays are approaching. A time when people talk about the miracle of Christmas, or the miracle of love. For most of us a time of happiness, cheerfulness and peace. But for many also a period of sadness in which they mourn and miss those they have loved and lost the most. Especially when they were lost to acts of meaningless violence. Most of those will probably still cherish their feelings of love but Christmas will bring a very different experience this year and though and the miracle of it has lost a lot of its brilliance. Miracles do still happen though, but we have to look for them in other things. To end this year a bit more cheerful I'd like to refer to one of those miracles that happened only abut 4 years ago. The miracle of the woman who saved Christmas.
Helen Berence Reyes Cardenas was only 5 years old in 2011 when her family found themselves in financial difficulties and realized they couldn't really afford Christmas. Helen didn't ask for much. Some clothes, a pair of shoes and a doll. She put her Christmas list in a letter attached to two balloons and set it free in hopes of it reaching the North Pole. Now a balloon is probably not the most precise method of delivering mail and the letter inevitably got knocked off course and ended up landing in California – about as far from Santa’s Workshop as you can get. But what are miracles if not that ting you expect the least to happen comes knocking on your door. In Helen's case pretty literal. A woman named Julie Sanders found the letter and realized it came from a little girl in need of some Christmas cheer. So, armed only with a scrap of paper that had flown across the whole of America, she tracked down little Helen and made sure she had a nice big bundle of presents to open come Christmas Day. Julie Sanders is a woman who can literally claim to have saved Christmas.
I am no longer 5 years old and have stopped believing in Santa a long time ago. But I'd still like to think miracles might happen. I'd still like to follow Helen's example and send out a balloon, hoping someone will find it somewhere in this world and find a way to make my wish come true. My wish doesn't have to cost that much and it really shouldn't be so difficult to fulfil. More than 7,385 lives were lost this year to meaningless terrorist violence this year, and still counting. Thinking of that and of all the people who are spending this Christmas without the ones they lost to terrorism, I just want to ask: can it be anything less?
Cover photography by Gert Kist.
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