I Care

I’m in the third quarter of my 69^th orbit around our little star.  I have seen eclipses, meteor showers, Shuttle launches, forest fires, floods, hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes.  I watched as humans first stepped on the moon and we landed vehicles on Mars and asteroids.  I watched Eisenhower initiate the Interstate Highway system.  I heard Kennedy say, “Ask not what your country can do for you….” But I only heard recordings of FDR saying “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”  I watched Nixon go and I watched classmates leave and go to die in SE Asia.  I watched Watts burn.  I watched Chicago erupt in protests in the year I graduated from high school.  I watched Wallace stand on the steps of the University of Alabama to forbid Black students from entering, and I watched Martin Luther King Jr’s, “I Have a Dream” speech live on our black and white TV.  I have seen us go from 3 bathrooms (men, women and colored) to two, and I have seen separate but not equal water fountains.  I remember life with rotary phones, no TV, no microwaves, no computers of any size, no jet travel; where radio and books were the escape.  I have seen much.  And yet still not enough.  I am not sure as are any of us how many orbits I have left.

In case I don’t have the chance to say it, I love you all.  I love you if you are taking Trump Kool Aide intravenously.  I love you if you host all my favorite liberal websites.  I love you if you read my blogs even if you argue with me.  I love you if I have yet to meet you and I love you if you have broken my heart.  I promise, I will never put you in a cage.  I will never separate you from those you love.  I will never suggest that you return to a country of ancestral origin.  I will never support someone else’s’ religious beliefs becoming the law that rules you, nor will I ever support the punishment of the minority, those who think differently and those who think at all.  You are human beings as am I.  We are not aliens here.  Earth is our home and we must begin to nurture her for survival rather than rape her for profit.  We must take care of one another and let go of the fear that someone is going to get something that should have been mine.  We teach Kindergarteners to let go of that fear and to share.  Surely we can manage that.  Surely we can learn if we have nothing good to say that we should say nothing at all.

And surely we should know the solar system, the galaxy, the universe is unbelievably vast and intelligent life is likely elsewhere.  I suspect we are not alone and we are not so unique.  We are an evolved species, even if we have not shown that to be always true.  We must take care of each other.  We must teach, we must clothe, we must feed, we must shelter, and we must heal all those that we can.  What a glorious mission!

So should you ever doubt that I cared for you let me say in no uncertain terms that I did.  Deeply.  Until the day I died.  

There, I feel better.