Children of the Sea

"Children of the Sea" is a short story from the book "Krik Krak" by Danticat.  Danticat is a Haitian writer who writes a great amount of historical fiction along with nonfiction pieces.  In this story two forbidden lovers write letters to each other.  The man is escaping on a boat, from Haiti while the woman stays there with her family trying to run from the soldiers who are torturing the citizens for speaking out against the government.  The both of them are running far away from something and with this, they are being pulled further apart.  These letters that they are writing, are filling in the gap between them.  It was almost like when they wrote, their lover was right next to them.  Everyday, they must face the reality of the crashing society that they are forced to live in.  They have to wonder "What more is there to life?", "Will this ever end?", they may not ever find the answer and most people didn't stick around long enough to even search for the answer.  They were always expecting the worst, for many of them jumped into the sea, hoping that the sea would take them and that would be a new beginning for them.  The thing that this man and woman had was true love, and although all odds were against them, they had each other and the had love.  For some reason, this story made it seem as though love was something, not something but everything.  If they stayed alive for love, that makes me wonder why did all of the other people who hadn't found love stay around.  In Danticat's assisting nonfictional essay "We are Ugly but We are Here" she talks about Haitians who went through hell but still held their head up high at the end of the day.  To be honest, if I was the "ugly" that Danticat refers to in her essay, I'd lay down and die as soon as I had the chance because in a situation where you have nothing to live for and you are treated like dirt it's hard not to give up.  I know that most of the time we're supposed to be strong, but how can someone be strong when the people around them are weakening them.  I guess that leaves my entry open with a question, "Does everyone have something to live for, if so what is it?"