Blood Diamonds

From 4/27/08

I've never been a big diamond fan. Personally, I can't tell the difference of a really good cubic zirconia and real diamond so it seems silly to pay big bucks for a real diamond.

Then there is the reality that I'm constantly losing things. I have one ring now for 8 years... its my grandmother's ring. And there's been a few close calls. I just no longer take it off. So why buy spend money on something I don't value and could very well lose?

In recent years, I've read about the horrors that occur during the mining of diamonds. So why support that too?

Last night though... I saw "Blood Diamonds" and it deeply disturbed me. Its the kind of movie I tend to avoid because its brutal and what is happening on the screen is (or has) happening in real life.

Diamond mining, in some parts of Africa, is funding an army of children as well as a bloody war. Those doing the mining are slaves, too.

It was so hard to watch at 12 year old (with a group of other boys) made into a killing machine. Then to watch his father searching for his son in a war. And a war I really don't understand but cringe at the pointless brutality.

My mother has the pair of diamond earrings that are to be mine. (Mom is a bit realistic/morbid... she divided up her belongings years ago so there'd be no confusion upon her death.) I love those earrings. Not because I covet having them for the reasons I explained.

The reason I love them is I used to watch her put them on. Like most daughters, I found my mother to beautiful. She was a younger mother too... she had me just a couple of months shy of her 20th birthday. Those stones in her ears just sparkled and she was always smiling when she wore them in my memory. Most likely due to it being a social occasion... and that her love gave her the earrings. (That marriage didn't work out.... but another story!).

I will treasure those earrings when they are mine...but now I'll forever wonder where they came from. Whose blood was spilled along the way.