Were You There?

When words just can't come together and you struggle to find something, anything that could shake people to the core as to why we are doing this to one another - in this quietness, an answer hopefully comes.

Please take some time to read this and hear what I'm asking. Aren't we all guilty of some part of this? We are not a perfect people. This is not a perfect world. And if we think that finger-pointing, anger and violent protests will absolve us from our personal failures, then we are only proving just how far from perfect we could ever be.

Here are my questions for all of us on deciding "what matters."

Were You There?

Were you there I ask you. Where you there? Did you give me a voice…did you care? Did you even notice I was there?

Did you cry for me when my mommy didn’t care? When she said to abort me, to tear me to pieces, to never see me smile or even breathe this earthly air?

Did I not matter?

Did you watch over me while I grew and teach me only good thing to do? Was I not special to you, more important than material things?

Or did you abuse me, beaten and starved, a burden left only to die?

Did you not care when I came to you… "why do they bully me?” Why, I cried.

Or did you snicker and point at me as you laughed at my tears.

Did I not matter?

Did you cherish me as a gift from God with special needs and special gifts?

Or did you call me a freak – a monster, a burden to society?

Did I not matter?

Did you search for me when I was taken for sex or drugs, for the pleasure of bad people?

Or did you sell me like an old shoe that didn’t fit for a price not ever worthy of a human life?

Did I not matter?

Did you shelter me when all I had was lost and the street had become my home?

Or did you laugh and spit at me as I searched the gutter for even a crumb, a morsel. All decency was lost.

Did I not matter?

Did you sit with me when my mind became childlike and my body was failing?

Or did you not want to be near me as I slobbered and smelt of urine, when I told you things over and over and over again?

Surely by now, I should have mattered.

So, I ask you

Were you there to march for me, to carry signs, to take a knee? Did you ever say a prayer for me?

Life does not come as a color but as a heartbeat.

When will we ever stand equally for every life be it the unborn, the child abused, the sex and drug abused, the special needs, the bullied, the homeless, the elderly?

Do I matter, are you there?