Friday, November 27, 2015

Have a great day, she said

Just yesterday I was out getting groceries for myself at a superstore. I finish shopping, pay and collect my stuff and the cashier very sweetly says "Have a great day, Happy Thanksgiving"

Now I know everyone says it all the time, and they all mean well, but it sort of got me thinking.

Thinking of a man, far away from a safe place like ours. Just like us, he kisses his baby goodnight, takes his wife in his arms and goes to sleep every night, hoping this isn't their last. But he isn't right this time. He wakes up to the sound of an explosion, a ringing noise and then his baby crying. He frantically searches for his wife, instead finds a hole where his living room used to be, and his wife's lifeless corpse. He rushes to get his baby, takes whatever little of his belongings he can find, his phone and all the cash he can scrounge and runs out with his baby, walks for miles evading guns on the ground, bombs in the air and drone missiles from the heavens and somehow reaches a port where someone takes all his money for a 10% chance of surviving the ocean to reach a place where he may not die.

He takes the chance, says a quiet prayer and hops onto the boat with his baby, hungry, thirsty and scared. He doesn't make a sound the entire trip, but the baby can't take any more. The baby starts crying. As the boat nears the port, for the fear of being caught by the noise and sent back, the others throw the baby overboard.

The man goes silent, he breathes, but he doesn't feel anything.

They somehow reach land, are hauled into overcrowded rooms where they're barely fed, or given water, have their luggage searched, repeatedly questioned to confirm they aren't terrorists and still not given a place to live since they have enough to own "expensive" phones, they don't need our help. Because the extreme cold weather is tougher to survive than a place where everything that moves wants to kill you, because they don't believe in the same god!

They say everyone gets their fair share of good and bad luck. How about this man?
How about a child who was born in such a place 3 years ago, barely gets to eat once a day, raises his hands when he sees a camera because he thinks it's a gun and doesn't want to die, and yet, gets killed in an explosion anyway?

Thanksgiving is celebrated so we can be thankful for everything we have, but we never stop to think there is so much so many others don't. We can't wait for any God or Angel to solve our issues for us.

We created these issues, God won't fix them. We must!

"Happy Thanksgiving", she said.

"Have a great day", she said.

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