try a little kindness

I'm quite horrified lately by some of the stuff I have been hearing in the news (no wonder I like to avoid it!) First it was the Polish guy who was tazered by the police at Vancouver International Airport. I watched the amateur video someone took of the whole incident. I cried deeply. I felt so sad for his mother waiting there for hours at the airport to kiss and hug him. I felt sad for the man who was in such distress. I felt sad for all the people of the world who have been abandoned, and let down by others when they needed love.

I remember the times when, as a little girl, I was abandoned, and how just a little kindness may have changed my life today. I came to Canada at seven, alone with my mother and sister. We had no other relatives in Canada. My mother brought us here to find happiness and love with her new husband. Within 2 years, he died, but not before betraying her. Then within one more year her father died. Within two more years my mother became terminally ill, and I lived for two years alone in a home with my mother sick and bedridden. No adult came into our home during this time. She died, and still no adults came to meet my emotional needs, and a roof isn't love. No one from my community. I had no community. No one hugged me after my mother died. Absolutely no one embraced the essence of who I was. I was 14. The girls in my grade in school came into the girls locker room where I sat, sad and alone, and asked if my mother had died the day before. I said yes, then they all shrieked in horror, and ran out of the room. The school counsellor told me, when I went of my own volition, to talk to her, "I don't know what to say to you". And she was also my volleyball coach. How can people do this others? How can we perpetuate this lack of caring? Adults must be responsible for giving direction to children. Don't think, oh, someone else is taking care of it. They aren't. It is hard to thrive when no one cares about you deeply. It is hard to know how to love if you have not been taught, but we must learn.

Now today on the news, in the interior of BC, they told of a homeless couple that had large buckets of paint poured on them, while they slept at 1 am outdoors, in the cold night. The young culprits, caught on video, were driving a new black SUV. These homeless people were left without blankets, jackets, & shoes in the middle of a very cold night. Apparently this is not the first time this poor couple has been harassed. I think this is scary. The lack of caring between humans.

I feel it deeply, and I have strong notes that resonate with me, because of my experiences, that many people cannot begin to comprehend. I lived without love from an early age. I lost much of my childhood when I deserved to be nurtured.

It's incomprehensible to think of how children live with their emotional needs unmet, and it's incomprehensible not to see this product in the motivation of some of the adults of our society. It's with our faith and perseverance that the universe puts right these wrongs. For our lives we have to walk the talk, or walk the talk, or...well you get the picture... Love is so worth it. Keep your eye on the prize. Be kind to someone today.