Unimaginable Loss, Indiscriminate Love

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I created this work on reflection of my experience as a survivor of the 2005 Bali Bombings. An image of embracing the bomber's mother has come to me many times since the event, and I feel that any piece of art that may potentially cultivate empathy and compassion should be shared. 

Since the event, I have often wished to meet the suicide bomber's mother; to talk with her, listen, learn, offer my support (as she lost a son), and to let her know that I feel no hate or anger but rather compassion. I feel compassion for her, as a mother losing a child, and for her son, who for reasons I will never comprehend, gave up his life and took the lives of innocent others. 

The fact that I cannot comprehend such an act leaves me with an appreciation that the bomber's experience of life was so vastly different from mine. I’m left in a deep sadness that some people’s experience of life would lead them to commit an act that brings so much suffering to so many.