Walk a Mile In Their Shoes

In this day and age when technology is all around us and basically a part of everything we do, do we really stop and think about people? Do we remember that there is a human spirit in all of us, and we all still have feelings, and emotions?

Wednesday was an extremely emotional, as well as physically and mentally draining day. We spent over 5 hours with a doctor and his team at St. Pauls Hospital. The entire time there, we were focused on Noah, Matthew, Rick and I. We relived Noah’s death, we shared stories with them about what an amazing young man he was, much too young to die, and we discussed life now without Noah. To say that we were “spent” is an understatement.

I came home, sat down, and started scrolling through Facebook. I belong to a number of groups on there and honestly, since Noah died my mind is more mush than solid many times throughout the day. Anyway, there is a group that I am in, which is a “pay it forward” group. The purpose of this group is to offer things for free to people who may need them or you can ask for things you may need. It seems to work well.

A member in the group had posted that she was looking for a blow dryer. She stated that it is the only sound her infant will fall asleep to, and the one they had quit on them. Well, I immediately think that I could offer some guidance, so I ask if she had looked at Value Village, as then tend to have many there on most days. The writer of the post stated that she had looked there, and had no luck. I left it at that.

A while later, I see that someone has mentioned me in a reply on that particular post, so I click on the tab to open it. Another person in the group decided to rip a strip off of me because “how could I be so stupid to suggest she go look somewhere to buy one, when obviously this is a pay it forward group and she probably doesn’t have any money. Some people!” She then followed it with a picture, which I am still not sure what it was symbolizing, but my first thought was that it was an empty soul.

I started to cry and I was crying for a few reasons. The first one was that I immediately felt horrible, because in that moment that I had replied, I was thinking I was in a different group. The second one was because I felt what she said was cruel and unnecessary, and the third was because I had just spent a day being emotionally drained, and the tank was on empty.

I replied to this person. I said something along the lines of “I apologize for posting that suggestion as I now realize that I thought I was in a different group, where they were looking for suggestions. Also, if you knew what I have been going through, and what I endured today, perhaps you would have been a bit kinder. We can all stand to be a bit kinder.”

In that second, I felt like I wasn’t a human being to this person that replied. I was just some face behind a keyboard to her. It also made me recognize that being in a technical world isn’t all it is cracked up to be. Just look what it has done to mankind. It has made all of us distant, disengaged and at many times ignorant. There is something to be said for that “old days” feeling where if you were angry with someone, you would use the telephone and tell them to meet you at the tree fort. Once there, you would have a true face to face, where emotions are shared and shown either on our faces or in our body language. (There may have been some fists too…..)

What came of this interaction was more a lesson for myself, than for the invisible person that posted the reply. Immediately I reflected on the fact that this person has absolutely no idea who I am or what my family has been through. But then I thought, “does that really matter?” The answer to that is “No it doesn’t.” You see, whether she knows me or not, or whether she knows my situation, doesn’t give her the right to be rude or condescending, but in this age of technology, it seems to be the way much of the human race is going. My story is just one example of this, but I see it regularly on social media. People hide behind the keyboard, thinking that this behavior is okay because they “don’t know the person anyway.”

As a society, we need to be cognizant of the fact that everyone has a story. We have all suffered some form of grief or trauma in our lives, and as I have learned, we don’t get over it but rather learn to live with it and we do the very best that we can to cope each and every day. I thought about this after that interaction and wondered what her story is. I am sure she has one.

After I had replied to her, another member of the group posted that famous line “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” I am sure we have all had those words pour out of our mouths at some point in our lives. It then made me remember this one from my childhood, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Think about that for a minute. It is a defense reply, but one that is so untrue. We tend to heal better from injuries caused by sticks and stones, than we do words. Words are so powerful. They can just as quickly hurt a person or make a person feel loved and wanted.

So, the next time you are going to reply to a fellow human being, whether it be via social media, text message, or e-mail, take a minute to walk in someone else’s shoes and remind yourself that we all have a story and some aren’t as pretty as others. Some stories have changed who that person is today. In our house, we always told our children to treat others as you want to be treated. Besides, don’t you think we could all be a bit kinder to others? I do.