Empathy and Fate
When a nation chooses hate over love, all is lost.
I was going to continue part two of my ghost/crime story “What The Cat Saw,” but given the results of the U.S. Election, I needed to relate a personal note to you all.
On weekday mornings, when I take my dog, Zeke, out for his morning walk, our route takes us down the block and past several apartment buildings.
As we approach one set of apartments, we always run into a tiny young Latina mother and her even tinier, kindergarten-age daughter. They are waiting for the school bus. The daughter always asks her mother for a piggy back ride as they stand there waiting for the bus, and the mother happily obliges the request. The two of them are adorable in the show of love they have for each other.
The young girl is especially smitten with Zeke and always says “Hello” to my little doggie. This doesn’t register with Zeke, since he’s usually preoccupied with sniffing every lamp post and tree. On his behalf, I always give the two of them a smile and a friendly nod.
This morning was the same as always, shared smiles then continuing on our stroll.
However, as I walked on with Zeke, I mulled over the election and how Trump’s proposed insane and cruel immigration policies will affect this wonderful little Mexican family.
I fear for their safety and their future.
The mother's only wish for her daughter is the same as any other mother, to work at providing a better, happy life. Yet sadly, they find themselves in a time where xenophobic extremists will govern our country, unfairly and wrongfully labeling their tiny family as a national threat.
This awful fact made me realize the return of Donald Trump, and his minions of self-serving malfeasance, signals a lack of two emotions we desperately need if we ever hope to survive as a nation: empathy and compassion.
These emotions, combined with a sense of hope and community, are the only tools a country has to strengthen itself against those whose evil would seek to plunder and destroy our souls.
Let’s all agree to work together to increase our empathy and compassion, because we’re going to need a truckload of it over the next few years.
Peace.
A Sad Update - April, 14th 2025
For the past month and a half, I’ve not seen this mother or her daughter on my morning walks with my dog. I suspect they might have left the US.
I’ve also noticed some of my other Latino neighbors are also decreasing in numbers. What a sad, small-minded hateful nation has the US become.
In Kamala's concession speech, she told her audience to continue to the fight to unify the country and to make a better world. It can be done through the small daily acts, such as your morning nod and hello with the Mexican woman and her child.
This morning I was so angry and devastated ... scared shitless actually ... and I could barely be civil to my husband. As the day progressed, and that included to visit to the dentist which I wasn't looking forward to, I was able to look around at the brilliant sunny day, the wisp of cloud hanging like a boa around the mountains, the geese in the fields. The staff at the dentist's was friendly and caring. One even apologized for not listening to my ramblings about southern Utah. She wants to move there. I sat in the swing, knitting a new pattern and watched birds drinking from the pans of water I put out for them. I didn't dare venture much further into town and its MAGA population, but instead, healed enough to prepare a good meal for my husband and have a pleasant dinner with him.
I also thought of the possibilities: Trump being sentenced to whatever next Monday. JD at Prez after evoking the 25th Amendment. OMG, JD being replaced by Michael Johnson, the speaker. It was crazy-ass weirdness, but somehow it made me laugh at the political specticle of it all. Then I listened to Kamala in her class-act speech to her supporters at her alma mater. Four years from now, she'll be back and Trump will be forever out of our hair. Who knows, E.R., maybe .... All we can do is just keep nodding to neighbors and saying, 'hello.'
Yes!! I absolutely 💯 agree!!! Now us the time to strengthen our ties to our real life community and to embody/enact our democratic values of decency and kindness!! Small daily acts!!!