Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Lack of compassion

I had a meeting yesterday with some moms of my son's school.

We were having coffee and talking about nothing important when a someone asked who was leaving our school.

One lady began saying the names of the boys that were going away and she mentioned a boy whose brother died tragically almost 2 years ago. After that, she said that the boy was out of control and "impossible to deal with".

The gossip began: how? when? where? And someone loudly said: "he committed suicide". The faces changed immediately and again the questions began. Everyone had something to say.

I was sitting there, looking at them, not wanting to believe what I was hearing. How dare they say something like that!

I couldn't believe it! They were judging that family so lightly and with such authority and obviously my blood began to boil.

This family had to face one of life's tragedies: the death of a child. They are trying to survive. They are making adjustments to cope the best they can.

Of course this little boy is "impossible to deal with": he lost his older brother, the mom he knew before the tragedy, the dad he had before his brother died and the older siblings that spent more time with the one that died and witnessed the accident. He was trying to adjust to all these changes and was sent to a new school on top of everything else. Can you imagine being 8 years old and dealing with all this pain?

I tried to explain these facts to those ladies, but no, they were so involved in their gossip that didn't want to hear what I had to say.

I got up and left. I didn't want to be there anymore.

I deeply believe that there is no excuse for the lack of compassion, not whatsoever. Stupidity, ignorance, gossip, false pity are not excuses for me!

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