A Lament for the Children — and for Us

Shajareh Tayyebeh all-girls primary school. February 28th 2026

Eighty-two girls died this morning. Eighty-two daughters who will not come home.

And somewhere the news moved on. And somewhere someone changed the channel. And somewhere the world continued as though this is simply how things are. Wars have been with us since the beginning. Conflict is not new.

But something feels different now. It is not only that children die — it is that we no longer know how to stop and honor them, to honor their passing.

We do not always know how to fall to our knees anymore. We have forgotten how to sit together in the ashes, and simply weep.

Instead, we calculate. We argue. We defend. We justify. And the tenderness goes missing.

So today I lament not only for the girls, but for the human heart that has forgotten how to care without condition.

I lament for every person who suffers the loss of love — through violence, through war, through indifference. I lament for the ways we have learned to protect ourselves from feeling too much and in doing so have stopped feeling enough.

May these children not be reduced to numbers. May their names echo somewhere beyond politics. And may something in us awaken again — not to outrage, but to reverence. May we remember how to grieve. May we remember how to care.

May we remember

that every child

is our child.

Nigel Lott teaandzen.org

Meditation Sans Frontieres 501 (C) 3 Non Profit Registered Charity TAX EIN 81-3411835.

May the lost be gathered into light. May the living remember how to care.