It’s been a challenging time to be a mom lately. Cara’s situation frightens me. August was a bad month for the university. They were attacked and over-run by insurgents. Students and staff were badly injured. Some were killed in the attack.

As her mom, one of my first questions was “Are you evacuating?”

The answer was no. Although most of the foreign teachers did evacuate, Cara chose not to. She cited her reasons, but it came right down to this: Now that an attack HAS happened, the school is probably safer than it has ever been before. Security is very tight. The walls have been reinforced with a new security design that will make it harder for cars full of explosives to crash through. The buildings damaged by explosives are being rebuilt. It will come out better and stronger for the attack.

I want to believe that. With every fiber of my being, I do so want to believe that thing. But in August two professors were kidnapped from their car at gunpoint. They have not been heard from since. Those professors have mothers, I imagine. What I cannot imagine is their pain as they endure the unendurable.

I watch the events in that part of the world very closely. When the US embassy in Afghanistan shut down last week, my response to that was “Typical Mom”. I posted a prayer request on facebook. I put out an IM for Cara to call home immediately, disregarding the time. I did not call her, as per her instructions.

Cara did call home, and man, she was unhappy. In her opinion, I worry too much. The embassy HAD shut down, but it was routine and happened a lot, she impatiently explained.

The problem with that was that they don’t. They don’t shut down routinely. She was trying to soothe me, and it didn’t work. False reassurances are no reassurance at all, I told her. I also told her that there are worse things than having a mother who prays, and who has friends who will pray with her.

In the midst of this chaos, we had a presidential election going on, the likes of which I have never seen before. I have never considered myself a liberal, but I found myself labeled as one very early on. It was bewildering to me, because I don’t consider myself a liberal at all. It seems that adhering to my religious beliefs made me a radical.

Even more bewildering was this: that other people (who also considered themselves religious) were solidly backing our president-elect.

Nowhere was that more in evidence than on facebook. People on both sides shared some pretty inflammatory posts. Sometimes they were outright lies. The one thing that I learned VERY quickly is that when someone has posted a lie, they are not interested in hearing the truth. Their point of view is all that matters. I also learned that in the defense of their point of view, people could get downright mean.

This has been a very divisive time in our nations history, and now it is done. I still don’t get on facebook now, because the gloating and exultant posts are just as mean-spirited as some of the pre-election stuff. Other posts try to assure me that America has chose rightly, and that we will be fine. False news stories are so intertwined with the real thing that it is sometimes impossible to glean the truth of the situation. There are dramatic posts that prey on people’s fears of what might happen next.

I don’t have a crystal ball, so I don’t know what will happen next, but what I do know is that I live in a part of the country where my viewpoint is the viewpoint of a minority. I’ve been told to my face that if I don’t like it, I can leave.     No. Like Cara in her war zone, I refuse to evacuate. I am an American. I belong. Being an American means that I am free to think my own thoughts, to speak my own words. That freedom is guaranteed to all of us, to both sides, to the minority as well as the majority.

In the aftermath of this election, I watch. Have you ever thought about the courage it takes to speak up when you know that you will be ridiculed for your words?

Yet this very week, two women wrote letters to the editor. Margaret Nicklas and Elizabeth Buonocore did just that. Thank you for that. Those words provide a counter point to the majority view. That’s important. When two sides are so diametrically opposed, it is my opinion that neither side has the truth, that invariably, the truth will be found in the middle.

Like a university half a world away, I believe that America will come through this time the better for it. We will rebuilt ourselves and we will be stronger. I believe that from this divisiveness, there will be unity. From this angry time, I believe there will emerge a peace.

I want to believe that. It is what I pray for, and I am convinced that my prayers are joined with the prayers of others, regardless of who they cast their vote for.