I was struck by the evening’s somber beauty.

Last Monday night I headed over to the federal courthouse plaza in downtown Spokane to observe a vigil honoring those who have died in the Iraq war. Though sponsored by MoveOn.org, and crowded with some of Spokane’s longtime peace-mongers, the event lacked the anger of Vietnam-era protests.

Instead, people gathered for quiet songs, poems and prayers. One at a time, they stood in front of luminarias symbolizing 74 Washington state soldiers who have died. More than 1,000 similar events took place throughout the country last weekend on the war’s fourth anniversary. In Spokane, motorcycles sputtered on the street nearby, yet as candles flickered, a solemn silence descended.

Leafless trees were bathed in the golden glow of spotlights. A bell tolled. Over the rooftops on this warm night hung a navy blue sky.

Chad Mitchell, who performed anti-war folk songs in the 1960s, appeared with his wife and daughter. He called them the Von Mitchell Family Trio. They sang Ed McCurdy’s song: “Last night I had the strangest dream/ I’d ever dreamed before/I dreamed the world had all agreed/To put an end to war.”

Mitchell knows how easily Americans dismiss that notion. Many consider war simply a part of the human condition. At 70, he doesn’t believe he’ll live long enough to see war end.

Yet he thinks an even more profound aspect of the human experience compels us to aspire to it: Our need for hope.

That night, the names of the war dead stopped me. They always do, so filled with the echoes of my daughters’ kindergarten class rosters. There were the “J” names of the early ‘80s: Joshua, Jordan, Jacob, Jason, Justin, Jeremiah. There was even a Megan, just like my own.

I wonder, as I imagine so many other mothers have, how such recent children can be sent off to war. Just a few years ago, we sang them to sleep and rose with their fevers in the night. How can these children now be sent off to kill and die? How did they move so quickly from stories spun by Dr. Seuss to those from Tony Snow?

This aspect of human reality will always strike me as surreal.

I know, though, it must be hard-wired into us to cheer on the young warriors of the next generation. The day before the vigil I sat in the Spokane Arena, surrounded by gray-haired fans shouting their throats hoarse to lend their psychic energy to those glistening, vital young men on the basketball floor. They yelled as though our lives depended on it, and in some primal way, they do.

We’re born of a people whose survival since the beginning of time has depended on the strength and dedication of strong young men.

We don’t seem to have the same primal energy for tending our soldiers’ wounds, for hearing of their losses, or for weighing the wisdom of their battles, either before they begin or after they’ve hit a dark impasse.

The people of the plaza last Monday night stood in quiet counterpoint to the March Madness that surrounds us.

Why attend such an event? In one of my favorite children’s books, “Horton Hears a Who,” it comes down to a small Whoville shirker who must let out one tiny “Yopp!” and save their whole world.

Most of us are that character. We hang back, figuring it won’t hurt to remain silent. Yet it may be our one small voice that will make all the difference.

On Monday night, a crowd of 207 people marched across the Monroe Street Bridge carrying candles as bagpipes played “Amazing Grace.” It was an evening with a sense of magic.

Many of the participants wore fleece and gray hair. Families joined them, children, too, including one little girl in bright pink legwarmers, trailing a pouf of white nylon net.

I imagined that if I leaned close, I could hear the sound of hope:

Out of her mouth, one small, extra “Yopp!”