Your parents taking food to grieving families may be the most important evidence in the essay. They taught empathy without calling it empathy. You watched people notice suffering and respond, then learned that this was simply how neighbors behaved. I appreciate your conclusion that empathy can be exercised and strengthened because it suggests that rebuilding a culture of care begins with practices small enough to repeat. Your decision to keep writing and advocating while living through your own “long goodbye” gives that argument considerable weight.
Greg, I understand that question quite a bit. Some of the most important people in my own life were simply faithful enough to keep showing up, speaking hope, and planting seeds when there was very little evidence that anything was changing. I doubt they knew at the time what difference they were making. Years later, I can see it much more clearly than they ever could. Your willingness to write from inside your own experience gives other people language, understanding, and perhaps a little less loneliness. You may never get to see the full reach of that, but please don’t mistake what you cannot see for an absence of impact. Keep going, Greg.
Your parents taking food to grieving families may be the most important evidence in the essay. They taught empathy without calling it empathy. You watched people notice suffering and respond, then learned that this was simply how neighbors behaved. I appreciate your conclusion that empathy can be exercised and strengthened because it suggests that rebuilding a culture of care begins with practices small enough to repeat. Your decision to keep writing and advocating while living through your own “long goodbye” gives that argument considerable weight.
Thank you, Kyle. Your comment is encouragement to keep up my advocacy work. Sometimes, I question myself if I am actually making a difference.
Greg, I understand that question quite a bit. Some of the most important people in my own life were simply faithful enough to keep showing up, speaking hope, and planting seeds when there was very little evidence that anything was changing. I doubt they knew at the time what difference they were making. Years later, I can see it much more clearly than they ever could. Your willingness to write from inside your own experience gives other people language, understanding, and perhaps a little less loneliness. You may never get to see the full reach of that, but please don’t mistake what you cannot see for an absence of impact. Keep going, Greg.