Wow what a difference an event can make. We have been crazy here at the hospital and the 15th of April was no different. Our morning started with a TTA Tibial Tuberosity knee surgery, a Regenerative Stem Cell procedure, a Perianal Hernia repair and appointments and then just like that the world gave us yet another cause for pause. An ocean and a country away people were celebrating the completion of 26. 2 miles and were stopped there, literally in their tracks, by terror. It makes me so very sad to know that our world is producing terror on such a grand scale. These events are no longer isolated. I look around at the events that plague the news and think this cannot be, this cannot be the world in which we live. Yet it is. Galileo Galilei said, “I’ve loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night”, and yet it is fear we feel in the darkness, tethered to sorrow and bolstered up by anger.
Today as I write, I have a dog here in our hospital with catastrophic but fixable wounds from being drug behind a truck. She does not try and bite us, she lets us simply try and help her because she knows we mean her no harm. Has she come to understand in her years or inherent nature that we truly mean only to help her. While I am sure the wounds are painful and her journey will be long and fraught with struggle and possible set backs she will heal. Fear is all consuming, it is often fear of the unknown, fear of the different or of the risk, that paralyses us. The world is changing: intolerance, indignation and misinformation are running wild like arrant children in a schoolyard. We go online and tear each other down because we can. We damage our children and shatter the innocence so we can feel better about whom we are. We are all equal, we are made of the same things and while some choose to hate, the rest of us choose to love. Think for yourselves, trust your intuition, the voice who says this does not feel right or this is the right thing to do, is the voice you should listen to. Look out for each other; we are all siblings of humanity. We cannot stand by and watch while evil and hate undo our society. We have a moral obligation to defend our children's future even if it is on our broken backs and goes against what our pervasive world broadcasts as the new normal. What these events show us is we need to come together, not tear each other apart.
"the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will." ~ Patton Oswalt
This reminded me that sometimes we simply need to look up at the world around us and see the beauty in it. When you see a list published with names of others offering people, strangers, a places to stay, food to eat, even a shoulder to cry on should they need it, it reminds us all to remember that we are who put the human in humanity. We set the example, we guard the secret to our own happiness, insulated by our struggles and shouldered by our own fortitude that good will prevail. Change is hard and it is getting harder to make a dent in the human conscience every day. We have to keep trying to do better, to be better, not better than each other, but for each other. Dr. Head and I try and live by this rule everyday. We go to sleep each night more in love with each other than the day before because we make each other better. We cannot change the world but we can change what we choose to put out into it.
For our friends from Boston and those family and friends that live there we hope only that you do not dwell on the bad. See the goodness that people around you showed in the hours of need not the hate, not the fear; only the love and the compassion. This is easy for me to say a half a world away, but I cannot be angry, that only feeds the fire of indignation. Instead I will choose to show compassion and give hope that all is not lost, it is simply misplaced. We will find it again and be better for it. The evil of the world will try to break you, but like a fractured bone we will heal and will be stronger and better than before. We are all victims in life. We can choose to live like one or we can choose to live like a survivor. Drake said "We are all in the same game just on different levels, dealing with the same hell just with different devils." I try and remember that when life gets harder it just means we have leveled up. There is more work to be done; but we are stronger now and ready for it. This is not how my story of humanity will end. I can and will choose to be the hero of my own story and "Everything will be alright in the end. If it’s not, then it's not the end".
