As easily as I recall the day before, I remember the joyful faces of children at the Dayton convention center on Thanksgiving Day. Even through the sleepy haze of an insomniac I remember their widened eyes and toothless smiles as they reached towards the wrapped gifts in my hands. Now, you may be asking--its Thanksgiving not Christmas when this is taking place right? Yes, as a small portion of the Thankgiving festivities at the center that specializes in giving needy families the warm and wonderful meal that they deserve to have more frequently there is a small room off to the side that is stacked to the ceiling with wrapped gifts. Inside the festive wrapping paper there is a pair of gloves and a hat, divided into small piles by age and sex. My father had dragged me out the morning before our own family traditions in order to help him with this volunteer work and despite my own feelings of having to get up so early and placed in such a bright and nosey place--the children's glee was quick to awaken my senses. I remember the swell of joy that I felt from their infectious smiles and the quiet understanding that I was helping families that were within my community, even if they didn't know so much as my name. It is a feeling that fills up your entire person, makes you have a sense of connection that is beyond just that of your friends and family. You hope that the kindness that you were able to bestow upon others will come back to you in your time of need and even if it doesn't, the feeling of giving back to a community of people that you should be more interconnected with is beyond compare.
That kindness did in fact come back to my family on the days after my father's surgery. The house was oddly silent without the presence of my father's bartone voice ringing through the living room as he spoke on the phone with another one of his clients. In my father's line of work being peer recovery from substance abuse and those coming out of prison, there are bound to be kind and giving people in their community. Though I feel all too often our minds are fogged by the mentality of a rigid life and work ethic that we forget that these types of people still exist. My father had left us with more than a handful of numbers to people that could transport us, offer us support, or even go get us food if we needed it. In the days following my dad's recovery three different people he had known both from his church/recovery community along with his work circle brought us a plethora of different grocery bags filled to the brim with foods for our family. Even once my father returned home to work from home in the weeks following, taking on more days than he had previously to work from the comfort of our home to make up for the time missed. On the weekend after my father's return home, he was given one more act of kindness, his coworkers had convinced his boss to let them pile together their vacation time in order to help cover my father's recovery time so he wouldn't have to work through the days he still had medical gadgets hanging from him like monkeys on a tree. While these stories are heartwarming, I'm using them to bring light to the lack of relationships that we hold with things outside of humans. All too frequently humans think of themselves as the end all be all of creation, religiously based or not is completely unfounded. In a Ted Talk that we watched it spoke about the way in which certain types of trees communicate and even divide up their resources to give them forth to the other plants within the same root system as them. The way that they thrive through these small acts of kindness the way humans do, how is it really that different? Why don't we attempt to further understand them and bridge the gap between the two of us since isn't the air that we need come directly from them and other plant life only for us to go chopping them down without a thought? It feels cruel realizing that the relationship that we could have with the forest and plant life around is just out of our reach. When we care for plants that we nutured as seeds or bought from Lowe's, we watch them grow and thrive inside our homes. So how is that any different from what is asked of us by the world outside of our homes? Why can't we simply allow ourselves to provide for the things that provide for us. We have never had a mutual relationship with the world around us, especially the forests. We have always taken from them with little to no sympathy. Though after finding these things that they do for those of their own kind as well as us brings forth the desire and importance even more to provide for them and aid them in thriving the way they have attempted time and time again for us.
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AuthorA place to view my thoughts and stream of consiousness during the walks through the woods. As well as discoveries and memories that tie into the overarching class ideas. Archives
November 2022
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