Mark, Barbara and Amy aren't going anywhere. They've got holes in their hearts. They might have planned a trip to Switzerland. But now they've just got holes in their hearts. Where the Life of Tara used to be. If they didn't live in the Twilight Zone now, I probably never would have heard of the Fetherolf family. I might have passed them at the train station and never even known they were American--never had a chance to say hello. Would that it were so.
Mark, Barbara and Amy have to deal with three Swords piercing their hearts now. The first Sword is Grief. A Tara-shaped hole in the Universe. Knowing it was horrible when she went. Heartbreaking sorrow.
The second Sword is Anger. Outrage at the betrayal, the sham of government oversight, the corporate greed. {"I trusted my daughter to them."} And mostly unanswered or unanswerable questions. {"I guess I do get a little angry when I see, for example, the press cover parent's indignity over a toy they feel is inappropriate for children in a 'happy meal' and yet my child is needlessly and tragically dead and the possible reasons remain unreported."}
The third Sword is Loss. Not just of what Tara was, but of what she could have become. Tara was 16 years old, an honor student going into her junior year at an international boarding school. She was in the Center for Talented Youth Program at Johns Hopkins University. She could ski, and probably would have loved the Alps. She would have learned to speak French. She would have been graduating now, and her family would have been here with her, enjoying the beautiful summer weather on Lake Geneva, maybe even staying for Montreaux Jazz Festival. She could have been the first woman president of the U.S. She could have had beautiful babies. She could have been anything she wanted to, really. The one option she wouldn't have picked--the one that cut off *all* the other options--is the one she got. And Mark, Barbara and Amy are left with 'could have,' 'maybe' and 'probably.' If words can be Swords, these will *never* rust.
And Robert never got to meet his grandparents, or take his first
step . . .
and Dr. Mann never got to cure AIDS . . .
and Tara never made it to her school.
They died together among strangers.
Do you know how much light 229 candles make?
Words are woefully inadequate.
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Three of Swords page(s) created August 28, 2000; last updated:
February 29, 2004.
http://www.moonchild.ch/Tarot/minor/swords/s03/s03.html
