My hands are small, I know...

"The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference" - Elie Wiesel

This quote has been moving slowly around in my head and in my heart over the last week or so.  It is that much more poignant that it came from a man who somehow, miraculously, survived the devastation the Third Reich visited upon its own citizens in World War II.  The senseless acts in Paris and other places around the world seem a relentless barrage of darkness that threatens whatever light we live by in the micro-worlds around us.  I am an empath, and so my own heart keenly feels these things - I've often been told that I become too invested emotionally and so each tear is a floodgate to emotional wreckage.  In talking to a (male) friend, JDB recently said - as the only words of explanation he could offer - she feels things.  I can't help it and it often puts me in awkward and painful situations.  I seem to collect the injured around me and I desperately want to heal them all.  I rarely can.  Even less so when it is the world itself I want to heal.

It did not help that the events in Paris unfolded while I was sitting alone in a hotel room hundreds of miles from home.  I did what I could to avoid traveling down a stream of tears until I at least had my standard support network in place - my family, my husband, my friends, my cats.  Even the dog.  But still - the buildings lit in familiar colors for another country's flag were a monument not easily overlooked as I walked the streets of a city that I did not know.  So, my heart ached, and still aches - here in the safety of home - for those put in harms way, those who paid a price they did not ask to pay, for those who are reeling to find answers when there are none.  And part of me finds that my support network is reverberating with hatred, fear, indifference, and paranoia.  I am reminded, at each visit, of the opening stanza of a Yeats poem that just two weeks ago my students presented.  Never have the words felt so real to me.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Build walls, close the doors, throw them all away because a few might be poisoned.  I've heard the refugees compared to the Jewish population under Hitler's regime.  I've heard them compared to food.  Food.  We are at a place where we are comparing the terror, desperation, and helplessness of human beings to grapes and M&Ms.  I've heard people who feel otherwise being called bleeding hearts, being berated and insulted, simply because we do not blame the Syrian refugees for these acts of violence.  This issue is dividing the world and yet the very country that exploded in blood and broken glass has vowed that it will welcome the refugees in direct defiance.  It remembers the words placed on the base of her gift to us - La Liberté éclairant le monde. Liberty enlightening the world.

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It always comes back to light, doesn't it?  Paris went dark and the world lit up in solidarity.  A thousand points of light and love dotted the globe before it turned to glaring spotlights on the innocent.  But that early light brings me hope; it always does.  Those early lights - which symbolize the world's ability to set aside differences for one brief moment - are why I will never give up.  In each chapter of darkness, there are always points of light and I will always look for those. There is always good to be found in the world.  There is always hope.  And if each of us believes that we can change the world, we can.

My hands are small.  I cannot heal the world alone, but I can hold your hand. And yours. And you can hold the hand of the next person, and they the next.  In the end, only kindness matters and we - each of us - has the power to spread that kindness if we can but push through the hate and the indifference.  I know this echoes of cliche and naivete, but I will not bow down.  I will not give up. The minute I give up hope and give in to the madness of the world is another step towards the failure of the world to rise above.  Another light that has gone out.  We must have our own passionate intensity.

We can do this.  Spread light.  Give love.  Start small.  Take my hand.

Looking Back, Going Forward

There are two truths in my life that may seem to be unrelated, but recently I've come to see how they link together like tributaries that eventually feed the same stream.

The first truth is that I do not want children and am not sure if I ever will. I have determined three reasons for this. The first reason is that I'm too selfish; it may sound harsh, but I can honestly say that I like my life the way it is and I'm unwilling to give that up right now. I know that having children changes everything and I'd rather not bring any into the world unless I know I'm ready to sacrifice life as I know it. I know there are countless rewards in parenthood, but that is not enough to remove this basic obstacle to becoming one. The second reason is that the world is often a horrible place and I'm not sure I want to subject a child to it. I know that's a 'big picture' reason which overlooks the microcosm of the immediate family and the smaller joys that life has to offer, but that does not change the truth of the larger world. The world makes me sad in many ways, and I don't want to give it to a child. We should be doing better for the earth and for all the people in it and until we do, I'm not ready to create another generation. The last reason is that I can't think of a reason why I, personally, should have a child. I know that for many it is an amazing and powerful experience that is filled with infinite joys and beauty, and I am so happy for those who feel this way. I do not blame others for wanting children, it is just that those joys and that beauty is not enough of a seed for me to have one myself. Unlike so many who have children and should not, or have children when they are not yet ready, I have thought long and hard about this and I know that this is the right decision for me, for now. I will leave parenting to those infinitely more suited for it, and I will support and love them and their children and celebrate the moments of joy they share with me. And that will be enough.

The second truth is that my last surviving grandparent passed away last July. Four years prior to my parental grandfather's death, to the day, my grandmother left us. I lost my maternal grandmother many years ago, and my maternal grandfather died before I was born. I've also lost an aunt, my mother's youngest sibling. I do not think I have suffered any greater loss than any other who had to say goodbye to a loved one, but these losses pain me greatly, as they do my whole family. We are close knit and not very large, so every loss leaves a deep hole that can never really be filled. We toast on their birthdays, we shed tears randomly, we hear their voices in our heads, we carry mementos with us and decorate our houses with them. Sometimes, I even fancy I see grandpa disappear around a corner or grandma get swallowed within a crowd of taller people. In short, I will never forget them because they are never really gone, though I will ever mourn their tangible absence from my life.

What ties these truths together is more than just that they are both connected to family and the precious and indescribable bonds that tie a strong family together. There is a small part of my heart that feels wistful and guilty about not having children. My sister has two beautiful sons, so it isn't that, but there's something special about giving one's parents grandchildren and carrying on the family traditions, teaching another generation what it means to be a family. This is especially true in today's world, when it seems that divorce is commonplace and tragedy strikes at every and any moment. This tiny feeling of lingering regret that tugs on my heartstrings is what brings me to my grandparents. As the older generation has slipped away from me, I feel like we are also losing our chance to explore the past that went with and before them. In my grandfather's house were stacks of yellowed newspaper clippings that chronicled the weddings, births, and deaths of generation upon generation stretching behind this family of which I am so proud. It is here that I found the means to give back to them.

This is the kernel of my legacy. Instead of continuing the family tree forward down through the years to come, I am working on building the tree backwards, filling in the branches and the missing links, uncovering the roots that brought us to where we are today. This is my gift to the future of my family, this is what I will pass down. Not the living, beating heart of a child, but the means to look down through the ages at all the branches and deep roots that created the boundless love that my sister and my cousins have surrounded their children with and network of love they will feel from aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, great aunts and great uncles, cousins, and siblings. I will carry out this labor of love with attentiveness, with devotion, and with care. It is a gift that some will appreciate more actively than others, but it is represents something that every member of our family benefits from every day of their lives, through every word and act of love that we share.

-T