I don't care if no one posts here but me. This is just eating me up.

Feeling now the sadness of more than twenty years ago that I couldn't allow myself to feel then. Hearing the so-familiar Iraqi dialect of Baghdad that used to be music to my ears.

They had a thing this morning on the radio about the Ba'ath Party. Again. Reminds me a lot of Hitler's National Socialists, actually. Kinda funny. Didn't know I dated a gangster.

I don't know what tears me up more--that our romance died, that he must've lived in hell these past twenty years, or that our son might've grown up to be in the Army too, maybe tortured people too. All of these run through my mind these days,with each Iraq report.

Why didn't I care this much after the first Gulf War? Why didn't I strive to look him up then? Whatever is the urgency now?

Mostly I just feel how much, after all these years, I still love him and wish him well. Wherever he and his family are. In my morning prayers, I send him love. Love to him, his family, and those he loves. Yes, even that Iraqi girl he married instead of me.