My first time posting a pic, so when you all point out my errors, be kind! I want to do it right
Posted on 09/05/2004 3:23:33 PM PDT by dennisw
For the first time in 24 hours, Zalina Dzandarova stopped feeling dead inside Friday. She had her daughter back — covered with blood, and suffering from shock and dehydration. But alive.
A day earlier, hostage-takers had forced the 27-year-old mother of two to leave the sobbing 6-year-old behind at Middle School No. 1. Only if she abandoned Alana, they told her, could Dzandarova carry her 2-year-old son, Alan, with her to freedom.
Haunted by the choice, Dzandarova spent Thursday night imagining what was happening to Alana in the school gymnasium with about 1,000 other terrified children and parents. She blamed herself for her child's ordeal.
"I know that I will never be able to forget this," she said. "I will never be the same."
Alana told her mother that a fellow hostage, a 15-year-old boy, saved her from the gymnasium after the militants' explosives detonated and set it on fire.
"According to her, when the explosions sounded, she just hurled her arms around him and begged, 'Please don't leave me behind' " — the same words she had uttered to her mother 24 hours earlier.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
What an awful decision.
However, I know that if I could only take one, my older daughter would be the first to tell me to take her little sister.
"Sophie's Choice"
At the time of this movie, I had two young children and anguished over what I would do. You never know until the moment comes. In Sophie's Choice, she wasn't given the choice of taking one to safety but was told she could chose one to send to death and one to send to the children's camp. She chose her son, the older one, because she thought he would be better able to survive. She never heard from him again. I always thought that the only moral choice for Sophie was not to choose. In the case of this mother, the lines are drawn in a slightly different way. She did the right thing.
I won't sign up or LA Times. But I bet they did not use the terms Islam, Moslems, Koran, etc.
I agree about letting her child talk it out as much and for as long as she needs. There have been various threads about American help, but probably their greatest need is solid counseling .. those people are going to need therapy for a long time to come .. and they will never get over what happened there .. they can only learn to cope with it.
You should be amazed that the little twerp didn't call them "Freedom Fighters". (I'm sure it crossed her mind... or whatever she has that passes for a mind at the LA Times...)
They need to become angry and make sure their children are safe in the future.
The mother will be in denial and then be finding ways to punish herself.
This is not going to be a good outcome for this family.
G-D HELP THEM.
I bet you're right, I was thinking that at some point the daughter will be VERY angry at her mother. Who knows whether or not that anger will ever dissipate.
What an abominable situation to say that this family is actually 'lucky' since all survived:(
My first time posting a pic, so when you all point out my errors, be kind! I want to do it right
OMG, as a mother of 3 I cannot imagine what that woman went thru having to leave one behind.
There is no answer for this family or for many others who lost their children.
Fathers outside who were helpless.
The horror will be there for all time.
I pray for them and their community.
Thank God. I was so horrified by the original article... in fact that's the article that made me realize just how horrific the situation was. I know I prayed for a happy ending for this particular story. Thank God.
And thank you for posting this. I'm so glad to know how this came out.
Thank God that she got her daughter back.
When I read of the atrocities that were committed by those MUSLIM TERRORISTS it makes furious.
Then when I listen to the deafening silence of the "moderate muslim" population condeming these acts of brutality it simply increases my resolve.
Unless we as a Nation take a stand now and say with one loud clear voice, NO MORE, this type of atrocity will happen hear.
Semper Fi
Prayer was answered.
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