Warning! When we open our eyes to things that are hard, it can stir emotions that in turn can result in change.
This past summer my 14-year-old and I pulled into our driveway and when I got out of the car I saw a sad sight, a little baby bird on the concrete. I told my daughter about it and she said something on the lines of “oh sad” with as much empathy as Oscar the Grouch as she continued to send snapchats to her friends. I was instantly annoyed but as we tend to do, at least as I tend to do, I ignored it and walked into the house to tell my husband, the resident picker-upper of all things that give me the creeps, about the bird.
It’s no surprise that when I came into the house and exclaimed can you please go get the baby bird out on the driveway our two littlest would hear this and exclaim this new information to be an open door for an adventure! A baby bird? We must see this! We must go now!
I argued with them that they cannot go see it, but my 14-year-old said, “I’ll show them”. There was silence in the house for all of maybe 4 minutes and then they all came back in yelling and our 14-year-old was crying. Like full on tears and she says “Mom! It’s still alive and trying to breathe and he’s just out there dying!” I started to well up too, because how could I not. Maybe for the bird of course, but second for the emotions I am seeing stirred in our daughter. So I ask, “What should we do?” and she said, “we are going to save him”.
Next, we are googling and searching for supplies and grabbing gloves and trying to find the nearest nest we think he came from. I’ll be honest here, I knew that poor baby bird had no chance. He was near dead and so tiny there was nothing truly for us to do but what we did, but my daughter believed we could get it back to its mama and so did her little brother and sister and that is what mattered at that moment.
It was an action, spurred on by finally opening her eyes to something that was there earlier but she refused to see.
I can’t help but think of all the things I refuse to really look at because I have too much going on already. I’ll be totally honest here and may take some shade-throwing, but recently I threw a cup with a straw in it away at my friends house and she said, “you guys, the turtles!” as she pulled them out and started to cut our straws up because she had seen a video on what they do to the sea turtles and now will always cut up straws. She told me she was going to send me the video and I said “please don’t…I worry about too much already I cannot add sea turtles to my list.” I said this in jest, but there was strong truth to it. I know for a fact once I see what damage something can cause by my actions, I will stop doing that thing.
It is easier to not see it and continue life as is.
I know of people who sold their home and all their belongings and moved to a 3rd world country to make a difference. I know a beautiful mom of 30 something girls in the Philippines who all needed a safe place to live away from their abusers. Heck, we became foster parents and now adoptive parents honestly just because we watched an episode of the evening news. Now I am not putting us in the same category as those who drop it all and move and literally change the world, remember I still throw straws away, but I am just saying it is amazing the changes that can take place the minute we see something that is hard to see but once you do there is no unseeing it.
My challenge is next time something comes up and you (ahem I) want to turn away because it’s too hard, let’s don’t. Let’s look that homeless man in the eye and ask him his name. Let’s volunteer at a children’s shelter. Maybe I can finally watch that video my friend told me about regarding the sea turtles (but I won’t drink out of paper straws, gross!). Let’s open our eyes to sights around us and see where our hearts move us. We never know whose life we could be changing, most especially our own.
