In times of great change we also have to remember where we came from. How can we forget the pieces of our history that have combined to bring us all here in this current moment? The only personal contact I have these days is limited. Usually it’s through casual conversation with my neighbour but nothing to controversial. It is hard to gossip in these times without everybody being able to hear. Speak to me in a thousand languages and chances are I will only be able to understand one. But tell it to me in a way that I can feel only then will your message be received.

We were chatting about the world and how it seems to be spinning a tad bit out of control. As a teacher she is very well informed about the coming and goings that is our current events. I mentioned that as part of my readings that I promised to tackle over the year was the biography of Martin Luther King. She told me how much she liked to read and how she found that she could only get into fiction and fiction that isn’t too hard pressed. You know the stories that are built on catastrophe there has been way too much of that lately.  Thinking out loud or maybe not at all I thought about how it was important for those lives to be acknowledged in whatever form that I may find.

To put things into perspective you only have to look through the pages of our history. What is happening in America has happened once before. It starts off small in forms that you don’t recognize. Reading through the Martin Luther King biography and now the tale of Folk Bernadotte (the Swedish humanitarian who rescued 30,000 people from the Nazi’s). To some that number would seem huge but when you put it into consideration just how many were executed it is hard not to feel saddened by their departure.  Millions were executed. More millions fought for their countries and never returned home. 15 million actually died during World War 2. How catastrophic. The difference between being born in this time and being born then is just what luck of the draw. To be born a male at such a pivotal time in history. Then all of a sudden it became about your beliefs. Imagine bein lead to slaughter just because somebody decided they didn’t like you. What is the difference between somebody dying now and somebody dying then. Each life should hold the same value. Except for now we should know better. If we care to read about those that lost the luck of the draw maybe we can see the path it is we need to take.

Think of those that are taken from us to suddenly. Those that are never born or those that reach the end of their life. Is their purpose any different then ours? Does their life deserve to be forgotten even though they may have something to share. Imagine all those secrets that die within that life. What does that mean? Where do they go? Imagine being the reason why somebody take their last breath? Be it by your own hands or maybe by those you hate. The human body can only take so much before it begins to implode.  There is so much to be thankful for or we can continue to obsess over what we don’t have.  The rich keep getting rich because they are born into it. The rest of us suffer. I will never understand how the wealthiest people in the world can come together and end all this suffering but they don’t. Imagine having more than enough money to outlast you and the generations to come their whole lifetime. They don’t need to live in such lavish splendor when they can fulfill their hearts with so much more. The world doesn’t work that way. Wealth is the luck of the draw. Yes there is hard work wealth but that is few and far from in between. At times don’t you just want to pull some Robin Hood type tactics to even out the playing field. Those that sacrificed their lives for other people’s wealth. There has to be a hell. There has to be. Why would there be so much pain if there were no consequence.

We don’t all get the beautiful ending of dying in our sleep. Some people are taking from us in the most horrendous of ways. We glorify horror like it isn’t inspiring some sick twisted mind to torture their victims. The market for snuff films, human trafficking and even child porn is lucrative and huge. Those are our children that they are taking from us. Not theirs. I guess it doesn’t matter if you are giving that little girl something that she always wanted. A life her family couldn’t afford. If that doesn’t work just take it by force right. Those lives matter. The haunting memories of each and every abuse victim matters. To ignore the world that we are being forced to live in will always brings us so much pain. What we need more than ever is for the average people to take their power back.  The threat of school closures is both a blessing and a course. In one sense it prevents are children from falling prey but it doesn’t help those that are being victimized at home unless of course we put some sort of action plan in place.

What would it take to make the world a better place? A more kind , compassionate, sympathetic ear? One that has danced across the line before and saw the other side now lives her life with such a fever. When I think of all the new and creative ways we have put into place to stop us from wanting to shine it just makes me want to scream. As a victim of abuse I know the shadow that gets cast on us. People always want t make it about us and how we must have asked for it in some shape or form. I know that we can’t control other’s misconceptions of us but we sure as damn well can handle how it is we react to them. Begin to love yourself and life begins to become easier. Honour the lives that have passed through time in just a simple elegance of remembrance. You don’t have to remember the specifics just the existence of those passed. Honour those that have fallen before us and open the doors to let go.