Why do I want to go to Taiji?

"Why do you want to go to Taiji"?

I had a woman ask me that yesterday. And it got me thinking about why I really want to go. It's no secret that we are all fans of the movie The Cove. Flipper was seriously my favorite TV show besides Rainbow Brite when I was a child. I thank Ric O'Barry and his entire crew for bringing to my attention about Taiji. I never knew anything about the dolphin slaughter and I was very ignorant to where dolphins came from. I just never thought about it.

I'm not a celebrity. I'm a Navy veteran, mom of 2 boys and a college student. I don't have thousands of dollars to travel all over the world. I don't have a fanbase large enough to put comments out on Facebook and instantly receive hundreds of comments in minutes. I don't reach many people. But my heart is in Taiji. My heart aches for those mommies and babies that will forever be torn apart by death. My heart aches for the dads that will die trying to fight for their families. I look into my sons' eyes and try to imagine the impact it would have on them if we were to forever be ripped apart and them to live a life of captivity. Or worse, what would their mental capacity be like if they were to see me speared and cut up right in front of them.

I took my son to the WWAWD protest in LA. I was the organizer for the LA protest and he wanted to come with me. I was so proud to watch him stand there and chant to stop killing whales and dolphins. He held his signs up high and he walked around with them. He talked to so many people that day and the poor guy was so exhausted, he was asleep before I hit the freeway. The next morning I was looking through the photos from the different cities around the world and I saw two of his pictures. I immediately started to cry. We had reached so many people yet the dolphin drive continued that day in Taiji. I saw several pictures of the killing barge and the men sitting on there eating lunch while dead dolphins and guts lay just a few feet away. I watched a video of the trainers in the water and watched one of them elbow a dolphin in the face. These people are supposed to love these creatures? I will tell you what love is. Love is putting your life on hold for a couple of weeks to travel to the other side of the world to witness something that most people shy away from. Love is to stand with others to try to stop a horrific event. Love is sitting down with your children and telling them there might not be a Christmas this year because mommy needs to save all of the money she can to try to stop the killing of our beautiful dolphins. And lastly, love is when your five year old looks you in the eyes and says "It's ok mommy, I don't need presents this year. Please stop the fishermen from killing the dolphins before I get a chance to see them again. And please bring me back a toy".