i go back to the bobby kennedy speech (from an earlier post) quite frequently. truth is, as powerful as his speech is, there are parts so simple, so straightforward that we quite often overlook them. 

"The victims of the violence are... most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed.

...whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded."


when my mom was younger she thought that the people around her were more of a background than anything. that their purpose in life (as they had no other) was to fill the spaces. 
it's a five year old's thought, you say. but it's more than that. it is the state of mind we're in. it is the mentality and the attitude that we have toward others.
i see bloodshed in the news; life goes on for me. 
behind the scenes, after the film crews have left, well, there's a family that has to pick up the broken shards and try to move on with life. if they are able. 


so often we say things to people not realizing that they may go home and ponder over these hurtful words, maybe for a day, maybe for years. and violence, well what has it ever achieved? apart from ripping apart the lives of those who have to stay behind?


until i lost someone, and even for a while after, i always thought that those who die, those who leave, are the ones we are to feel sad for. but its not so. they're the ones who get off lucky. the people who stay behind as mortals and succumb to feeling are the ones who truly suffer.


robert kennedy talks about "the fabric of life which another man has so painfully and clumsily woven" and isn't that so? isn't that the way our lives are? that we work for something to give us a bit of purpose, to ensure the bit of happiness that is rightfully ours. that in a heartbeat what we've put up can come tumbling down. it may be fate. it may be the "mindless menace of violence". but if it is something that we can control, why don't we? why don't we try, for once, to be nicer, more polite but more sincere. why don't we help what we can save?