Tag Archives: optimism

news-commentary

On hope and resilience

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Like, I hope, millions of others, I sat glued to my TV last night, watching the Jaycee Dugard interview on ABC. I actually rushed home from church and bought a frozen dinner (instead of cooking) so I could watch it.

I’ve periodically wondered how she is doing ever since she was discovered in 2009 after having been missing for 18 years. I understood her need for privacy (refusing to buy any of the magazines that claimed to have the scoop), but I still wondered. Almost exactly six months older than me, her story hit me deeply. I couldn’t imagine missing the 18 keys years of life — junior high, high school, college… marriage. And to have given birth… TWICE… in a backyard…. at such a young age! My heart ached for her, and I prayed she’d find peace and be able to make a life today for herself.

The few clips I saw leading up to the special showed me a strong woman, and I was already inspired by her.

So when I sat down with my bowl of microwaved jambalaya and a glass of wine, I wasn’t watching out of any weird morbid curiosity. I watched to be inspired more…

And I WAS.

What I watched was one of the strongest most amazing women I’ve ever seen. We look up to actresses and singers, etc. but its people like Jaycee that we need to look up to and be inspired by. Having gone through such a horrible ordeal, she faces her story head-on and hopes it’ll help others who have been victims of rape and kidnapping. She has been through a lot, but there was a peace on her face. She spoke of hope and living every single day to its fullest.

Her relationship with her mother made me so happy, and I got teary at times watching them interact. She speaks of her daughters — girls she gave birth to after becoming pregnant at the hands of her captor — with a deep mother’s love of her own. If she finds her “soul mate” and some day gets married, that’s great. But she’s happy in her life as it is.

She’s happy.

And THAT is what I so hoped to see. More than anything, I hoped to see a happy woman.

I’m going to try to pick up her book (A Stolen Life: A Memoir) soon. I want to read more of her strong, positive and inspiring words. Learn more about how she coped through it all. And I’ll read it knowing it is the words of a woman I officially look up to and admire. I pray I never go through anything like what she went through — NO ONE should go through that — but, more, I pray that in any trial thrown at me in life, I will handle it with even a little bit of the strength she has shown to have.

news-commentary, optimism

The ripple effect

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My second favorite shot of the dayWhen you throw a rock into a body of water, waves ripple out from that point. That one disturbance can have an effect on something far away, something seemingly unrelated.

I haven’t written anything about the Arizona shooting last week, primarily because I was “off line” and “out of touch” through it. I followed a little but about it via Twitter on my phone, but on a whole… I was pretty clueless until the last few days.

My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones that day — even the shooter’s parents, who, essentially, lost their son, too. The ripple of grief goes far and wide to family and friends of those victims.

Those injured, some still lying in hospital beds, will have long lasting scars from the events, and their friends and family too are worried, saddened, but also filled with hope for recovery.

We as Americans are left to wonder how this will effect our government. How will it effect our interactions with others? Will we make positive changes to help others with similar violent tendencies or mental issues?  Or will we keep the status quo and believe we see no evil, hear no evil… until it is too late.

Some of my favorite stories to come out of this tragedy are the ones of positive changes being made by our youth. This news article out of Chicago details out some of those changes and events, all with a nod to the youngest victim of the shooting, nine-year-old Christina Green.

“Students in Tucson have already started Christina’s Challenge, during which they promised to recognize random acts of kindness,” the report says.

There is a ripple of positive going out from this tragedy, and its by our youth. As adults start pointing fingers, blaming politics, guns, and even violent video games, its our youth that show us that perhaps its not by pointing fingers that change is brought. It is instead by finding a positive ray of light to follow. It’s by making positive changes in life that true change is made. Not by pointing fingers and writing new laws. But by holding out a hand to a stranger.

As you may see on the right of the screen, I am a member of the BlogHer network. I received an email today that one of our members was one of those injured in the shooting. You can read the post about the shooting here. BlogHer has also set up a survey asking your thoughts on the shooting and how it will impact you and our democracy (yes, it does address the political angle as well) . Anyone can join in the survey, and you’re invited to do so here. The survey is completely anonymous.