Do you think that about the past? I do…not so much about what happened yesterday or last week or last year…more about what happened to other people – the things that brought people to here and now. Yesterday I witnessed a mother strike her young daughter – a slap across the side of her left ear and cheek…it seems the little girls pleading to leave and go play was too much for the mother to contend with while she finished the task at hand – paying for cigarettes and $10 worth of gas? The strike resonated so intensely that it silenced everyone and woke us from whatever place we were living, forcing us to engage in this new alternate universe that was immediately foreign and uncomfortable. The little girl braced instantly and far to instinctively and then, hardly reacted other than to lower her head and draw her whole universe in…fleeing to some other place deep inside…sadness followed her from all of us. An older gentleman just behind me stepped toward the pair, perhaps in anticipation of intervention if another strike seemed imminent, and then halted seeing the apparent non-reaction from the child…we looked at each other not sure what to do next…our link to them just as quickly was being severed. “Are you okay”, I said smiling and kneeling down and extending my index finger just barely touching her shoulder…she looked at me ever so briefly and her mother pulled her away and said something I did not register…hurriedly they left the store. The older man and I looked at each other again…no words exchanged…wrestling with the choice to now do nothing – link severed. When I exited a few minutes I saw them again…the mother laughing and tickling her daughter – laughter and joy…and then the daughter leaned in and took her mother in a deep and powerful hug…unconditional love. I watch them load into their old car, child seat attentively fastened…more laughter and smiles…and then drive away. Still I felt sad and slightly unnerved having only had a glimpse of their lives and I was left wanting more…a history there so intense and complex and evident…it screamed to be known and understood if only to add clarity and compassion to the contradicting events just revealed. It seemed too easy to simply disregard them…turn away and forget them instantly and get back to the matters at hand in my own world…I was struggling with my own brief cameo in their lives and was left disappointed in my own performance. The matter of my own conflict force to resolve itself as they drove out of sight up the road…to face the truth that we are all descended from villains and heroes in some manner or another…and lie to myself that it will all be okay.
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Lawrence Lewis
“It is better to be hated for what you are than loved for what you are not.” ― André Gide
About Lawrence Lewis
I do a number of things professionally...but most of all and the true purpose of what I do through "my work" is to provide for my family, be a good husband and great father, and try to make a difference as a world citizen...I guess it's not much more complicated than that 🙂