Dear Rachel,

Dear Rachel,

They've been doing roadwork on 15th in the U district for weeks now. Every morning I walk past bulldozers and other vehicles. They're all made by the same company, Caterpillar, Inc. These bulldozers are not outfitted with special armor, they are not designed with the destruction of homes in mind, but they are roughly the same size as the bulldozer that killed you 8 years ago this month. That's all I think about when I walk beside them, when I hear the grumble of their engines.

The size of these machines is overwhelming from my 5 feet, 7 inches above the sidewalk. Never mind the blades they're wielding, the size alone is enough to make my hands shake a little. How did you stand your ground in the face of these things, Rachel? How did you stare them down right until they killed you?

I'd like to think that I could do what you did, but walking by these machines as they engage in nothing more provocative than road repair, I have to wonder. I have long thought of you as terribly brave, but these days I'm getting a more visceral sense of your courage. As a freshman in college, I returned one day to my small-town high school to visit some teachers. I ran into my history and government teacher and I told him I was studying Arabic. He asked if I was "going to go to Gaza, like that Corrie girl, and die helping terrorists kill Israeli babies." It was not the first time I've been called a baby killer, nor the last. That is what those who hate call you, a baby killer, an accessory to baby killing, and I can't help but think it is because your courage makes them afraid. Those are the words of men who live their small lives in fear.

I met George. You know George. George helped recruit you to the ISM. Meeting some one who had met you, had seen you when you were alive and still just a girl who liked Pat Benatar, it made you real to me in a way that reading your journals and seeing you on the news had not. Walking by these bulldozers has made the way you died real for me, too.

I have often thought that those of us still fighting for a saner US position on Palestine are like you, facing down the metaphorical bulldozers of US opinion and The Power That Be. I apologize for ever having this thought, Rachel. Walking to work each morning I am reminded that your bulldozer was literal, was all steel and sound, and that you must have been so scared to be so small beside it. You died standing your ground in a way that no metaphor can touch.

Sincerely yours,

Kelsey