In light of the recent Boston Marathon bombing, the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas and the anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, it is easy to feel that the world is becoming a dark place.
I am not writing to discredit the horrors of these events — while I was lucky enough not to personally know anyone harmed, I was certainly saddened by each of them, and my thoughts and prayers go out to all of those who were affected by these tragedies. But in times such as these, I believe it is important to remember the good there exists in the world.
Among a Twitter feed full of news reports about the Boston bombings and #PrayersforBoston tweets, I came across one tweet reporting that many of the marathon runners crossed the finish line and continued to run toward the hospital in order to give blood to those who were harmed by the explosions.
I’m not familiar with the geography of Boston, and the longest (well, only) race I’ve ever run was the ZTA 5k, but I have a feeling that the thought of running any extra distance after the 26.2 mile marker would be rather unappealing. I’ve also never donated blood, so I don’t know how that would feel in a normal state, let alone a state of exhaustion, but from what I have heard it is not the most pleasant experience.
If those runners had stopped at the finish line and gone home to mourn the people who were harmed or killed, no one would have thought any less of them. They were not at all expected to run to a hospital, but they did it anyway out of the desire to help their community.
A few days later I came across an article about a volunteer firefighter in Texas who abandoned his burning house and his dog that had been killed in order to rush to help the rest of the community. Once again, he had no obligation to do this. He was not being paid and in the midst of a personal tragedy, but headed straight toward the plant even though there was still the possibility that it could explode again. But to him, his life was insignificant compared to those he could potentially save.
I don’t know if the volunteer firefighter went on to save any lives, and, to be honest, I’m not even sure if those runners would have been allowed to donate blood immediately after running a marathon. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the fact that they did those things out of the goodness of their hearts, gaining nothing in return.
Sure, there may be some people in the world who feel the need to inflict harm upon others, but I would be willing to bet that for each one of them there are at least a hundred more who would be willing to give their life to save another’s.
We may never understand why these horrible things happen, but I think it is important to understand why good things happen — and that is because people love each other. Not only family, friends or acquaintances, but also people they’ve never met. Most people do not wish to see another person seriously harmed, and they typically gain joy from helping others. We may disagree about issues of politics and religion, but the overwhelming majority of us wish to do some degree of good in the world.
To wrap up my column, I am going to leave my readers with my favorite movie quote from the opening of Love Actually, which I think sums things up very well. “General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there — fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge — they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion love actually is all around.”
Kelly’s column runs biweekly Mondays. She can be reached at k.seegers@cavalierdaily.com
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