Once you choose hope,
anything's possible.
~Christopher Reeve
As I read the Star-Ledger’s front page yesterday, I thought I would be able to read the full article about the South Plainfield fire that claimed the lives of four children and a grandmother. Truth is, I couldn’t. This doesn’t happen often. I was filled with such sadness for Natalie Jefferson. She is the grief-stricken mother who lost four of her children and her mother that tragic day.
Please light a candle, say a prayer, do an act of kindness for a child or elderly person, send thoughts of comfort. Natalie Jefferson has been dealt a terrible hand and the only way I can see myself going through my day of mundane tasks is to put some kindness into the world. Am I trying to create karmic balance? -- put positive in the world to balance the negative? Maybe. I realize there’s not enough good in the world to “make up for” the loss she’s suffered. There is no “making up for” such a tragedy. But my options as a stranger who doesn’t know Natalie are these: ignore the loss because she’s a stranger not in my little “world”, succumb to the notion that the world is tragically flawed and goodness/kindness are quaint vestiges of a bygone era, OR bring myself closer to Natalie taking upon myself a molecule of the pain she feels.
So I will light a candle for Natalie’s family: her mother Annie, age 62, and children Aliza, age 12, Tyler, age 7, Christopher, age 5, and Elijah, age 2. My hope is that you would find a spiritual practice that touches your soul and find a way to include this South Plainfield family.
