Another Involuntary Martyr: Victoria Amelina

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 One of us has been murdered.

Victoria Amelina, 37 years old, the author of two novels and two children's books, a literary award winner, a poet, and a woman with everything to look forward to... died in a Russian missile attack on a restaurant in Ukraine.

At her age, I hadn't accomplished half so much. 

But she was dining in a restaurant in the city of Kramatorsk, Ukraine, when a Russian Iskander missile hit the building.

This is what happens when a foreign tyrant finds he can't seize a nation in a week and decides to reduce it to rubble over a prolonged war. People like Ms. Amelina aren't collateral damage. They're intentional  victims.

As are all the others who died in that missile strike. They might not have been noted writers. But they were human beings who valued their lives, their loves, their families every bit as much as she did.

I mourn them all.

But for selfish reasons, Victoria Amelina most of all. What might she have written? What young writers might she have inspired? What fortunate phrase might have found itself into your everyday usage?

We'll never know.

In her memory tonight, I shall imagine selections from the books she will never write, the poems she will never create, the thoughts no one but her could have put words to.

And then I will curse the darkness.

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