2012---a year in review

When I first thought of the idea for this post I thought I would have nothing but the bad things to recap. It seems to me that the last several months have been nothing but news. Hurricane Sandy, mall shooting in Portland, shootings in Connecticut, midnight shooting in Colorado, the deaths of Whitney Houston, Phyllis Diller ( et al ) and of course the angst over 12-21-12 -- I perused Google in hopes of finding something, some little story tucked away and forgotten and found nothing but confirmation that, for most of us, the year 2012 pretty much sucked. I felt defeated! Wasn't there anything that happened in 2012 that was actually good?

Finally! Stuffed in the closet of news I found this little story. It starts off sad, the loss of life, but ends in triumph and happiness.....on January 5, 2012 a little girl named Jessie Rees lost her battle to brain cancer. During her 12 years of life she probably lived more than any of us will ever in our lifetime. She not only embraced life but death secure in the fact that she would one day "earn her angel wings". Even as she struggled, her thoughts were on how she could help other children and their families during their own battle with childhood cancer etc. At 12 she instinctively knew the power of laughter and happiness. She created something called:  Joy Jars. 

A 6 year old Will Lourcey decided that he would work at ending hunger not only in his own town but in other towns and throughout the U.S. He created 'FROGs' ( Friends Reaching Our Goals). This was a unique way he and his friends could come up with ideas on how to raise money for the fight against hunger.  Even at 6 years old he knew that hunger in America is unacceptable and acted.

Cassandra Lin is changing the world "one fry at a time" by turning grease into fuel and helping the less fortunate in her community. She created  Project TGIF which basically recycles all the used grease from fast food and others into usable alternative fuel.   On December 24th, 2012 Will, Jessie and Cassandra were honored by CNN for their amazing contributions.  These children saw a need and rather than get bogged down with the what if's and the I wish I could help's and the bureaucratic bullshit that some adults get lost in they just DID IT.  Along the way they inspired others to do the same, to join the cause or start their own cause.

As I read these stories and got lost in others I found some comfort knowing the the year 2012 was not a total loss. That it's not hard to see the good in people, and less harder to be the good. Yes, times are hard and times will be harder. Life is sometimes chock full of sadness, death and sorrow. But how we deal with it is half as important as what he gain to learn from it.  We can no longer afford to look to others for the solution. We have for too long rested on "I'll do it later" or "it's not my problem to fix" and in my opinion, we've lost sight of the idea that we are all in this together. Good bad and otherwise. The problem belongs to all of us and the solution can be found in all of us. These three children ( and countless before and after them) have showed us how to rise strong in times of uncertainty. How to stare into the face of failure and death and never blink! When we come together, putting our differences aside and work to end hunger, cure cancer, end poverty etc we become the strong nation we once were. So.......