This week, I have been showing the film Glory to my Black Studies class. (For those who may not know, it's a Civil War piece about Massachusetts' 54th regiment, the 1st all-Black regiment in US history, and the 1st of many to fight for the North.) No matter how many times I watch this film, the sight of these men (and boys, because many of them were barely that) scattering the fields of the final battle scene - a battle which, incidentally, they didn't even win - makes me cry like a fool.

Now my students, they're another story altogether - they're not big crybabies like me, and it takes a lot more to move them to tears. These guys have grown up with Violence and Death sitting on either side of them -at the dinner table while they watch the news, on the sofa while they play their video games, and, sometimes, on some of the more hectic Brooklyn blocks where anger, poverty, and frustration all too often prove to be a combustible combination. But - I'm happy to report - my crew was still moved by what they saw today. (One guy even admitted that he had already watched the ending at home, and he had to struggle to fight back tears as he watched these soldiers fall.)

Why am I happy that I made my kids cry? Simple. If they're crying, Violence and Death haven't obstructed their view of Compassion.

Think about it. How many times have we watched our favorite stories from a GFFA and been so busy following the storylines of our favorite characters from said galaxy that the explosions of X-wings and TIE fighters don't even register anymore? As we 'sit back and enjoy our feature presentation', marvel at the cinematography, figure out who shot who first, we eventually allow the constant warfare and subsequent losses to become insignificant, almost impersonal. We forget that each burst of fireworks on the Coruscant skyline represents the loss of someone's son, husband, daughter, brother. But somehow, our heroes and heroines miraculously manage to dodge enough enemy fire to miraculously make it to the next episode.

Now, fast forward to the Expanded Universe. In Hollywood, we know our favorites will return for the sequels because we read in People that the multi-film deal has already been signed. But in the wonderful world of words on a page, anything is possible. And this is both a thrilling and terrifying premise. Books take us past the fast-paced action and into the minds and souls of our characters as they deal with the far-reaching consequences of the decisions we watched them make in the films. And, eventually, they take us to a point in the saga where even the most beloved of these characters must be claimed by Death. It happens, and it sucks, and we cry. But this is why we love this saga. It reflects life, in all of its depth and complexity. Like us, its characters grow, and their reactions to the loss of their loved ones gives them - and us - a chance to gain a deeper understanding of their inner selves.

Take Han Solo. When he loses Chewie during the events of Vector Prime, Han Solo - smuggler, warrior, hero of the rebellion - crumbles into little pieces. Now, the drinking, anger, and lashing out I would have expected; after all, how else do you react when your partner and best friend is gone, and you can't accept it, can't figure out how you're supposed to go on? What surprised me was the way he opens up to his wife in his pain. He admits to her that as if the loss of Chewie wasn't enough, he now has to deal with a whole new reality - a world where his loved ones aren't invulnerable anymore, where his wife, children, and extended family could just as easily become casualties of the struggle to defend their way of life as Chewie had:

"I never thought - " Han began quietly, his voice breaking apart . . . "I had built this bubble around us . . . you, me, Chewie, the kids, Luke Mara, even Lando. Heck, even the stupid droids . . . Nothing could hurt us . . . "

He goes on to face the realization that 'this should have, logically, happened a long time ago . . . They had been living on the very edge of disaster for so very long . . . so many times, it seems, one or more of them should have died." But for so long, they didn't. And Han Solo's safe, cozy bubble must have seemed, in his mind, to become all the more impenetrable with each narrow escape, each brush with death. Until Chewie's death burst that bubble, seemingly forever.

So, how do we in our own world deal with the potential disasters that might befall us in the course of each day of our relativley, deceptively mundane lives? I truly believe that Han is not alone - most of us have constructed this self-same bubble, for the sake of our own sanity. After all, if one watched the news each evening and really considered the possibility that the attrocities that digust and frighten us might actually befall us or our loved ones, we'd be too paralyzed with fear to function properly. (All of you parents out there, does the news ever make you wanna grab your kids and flee to a heretoforth deserted island, or am I the only one???) But most of us don't give in to the paralysis, the paranoia. We create a bubble to encompass those we have brought into our own little world and, like the Force-sensitve jedi sometimes try to do, we tune down the vibes from those outside the bubble, because to do otherwise would be overwhelming. We can't worry about everyone; we instead cling to the belief that its not too much too ask that this small circle of people stay out of harm's way - and, if you're like me, that we never have to live long enough to see any of them suffer, grow old, or die.

Well, I'm going to tell you what happens to some of my neighbors in Gotham City who have had their bubble burst one too many times, who have seen too many loved ones, acquaintences, or neighbors of their own become senseless, and, often untimely victims of the usual suspects, Death and Violence: the all-encompasing bubble disappears. For it costs too much, emotionally, to keep such a delicate thing afloat when you've seen so much evidence that it can't possibly last. Instead, they either create a bubble big enough for only themselves - thereby eliminating the need to care about somebody who may not stick around long enough to care back - or, worse still, they don't bother with a bubble at all. Death and Violence have grown so powerful, and now loom so large, that Compassion is hidden somewhere in its shadows, lost in the pain, anger and confusion that comes with too much loss. It's easier to pretend not to care.

For those of you who may have caught my first entry, you know that losing Chewie - as strange as it sounds to someone who never loved a fictional character the way I love this guy - was indeed very personal for me. Not just because I love Chewie, but because often times really great stories touch some part of you that's completely real. Because it brought me back to the turning point in my life when I was forced to accept that the sheer will of my fiercely protective love can't keep those I have included in my bubble safe forever. Because, like Han, I need some version of that bubble just to accept the pain and move on in spite of it.

Maybe Han Solo's bubble will come back (I dunno; not done with Dark Tide: Ruin yet, and he's still drunker than I'd imagine the Rogueish one is on New Year's Eve). I know mine did; after I ranted and railed at Death, I learned to carry on my life in a city where we (miraculously) keep a respectful distance from each other. I still look for him and Violence around every corner, and when the bell rings on Friday afternoon, I say a small prayer that my students won't run into either one of them over the weekend.

Because my bubble is not only back, it's bigger now. It hurt when the old one got busted, but the new one I built is bigger and has room for more people. Because I'm not as afraid to lose them as I once was. Oh, it the possibility still terrifies me - don't get me wrong - but I know now that I'm blessed to have so many people to worry about. And I know that if my kids can still be moved enough to cry over a sad movie about heroes that died so long ago, they're still close enough to Compassion they haven't lost respect for the frailty of that bubble.

And I hope they never do.