Peconic Replication

She must have been in the 3rd grade and some kids said something mean. Not to her, mind you, but to another little girl who then sat off by herself and cried. My daughter went to sit with her instead of going off with the other kids. When I asked her if she didn’t feel good about herself, she replied with all the candor of a child “No, I just wish that girl didn’t cry.”
That happened almost twenty five years ago in my tiny little town at Peconic Elementary School. But like the perfect number in a Pythagorean equation that replicates itself over and over again no matter how big the number becomes, so does that scene in Peconic replicate itself over and over again, no matter that the stage is bigger and the stakes are higher. It is replicated in Russian schoolyards, on Iraqui battlefields, in African villages, and in Indian cities. Someone somewhere is being hurt and hopefully, someone else is there to help. And, yes, sometimes that someone, for example ME, wishes the person being damaged could handle it and not show his pain. But once I see it, once I know it, I can’t ignore it. Humanity demands it; God commands it. Surgeons from ISMS need money to help people who are in pain. Now you know it, you can’t ignore it.
Yeah, I wish there were a sufficient infrastructure in countries like Pakistan, India, and Guatamala to support quality surgical care for the villagers in remote areas and the extreme poor in their cities. But they don’t. It is what it is. My daughter taught me that lesson twenty five years ago. I pass it along as a reminder.