*Warning* Downer Alert!!!

So, I've been thinking about something lately. A few weeks ago I went to Oklahoma City with 2 of my friends for "Time Out for Women"; it's kind of like a retreat. It was great, we stayed in a nice hotel and got to hear some amazing speakers. The weekend we were there also happened to be the 13th anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing. We visited the memorial in the late afternoon. For those of you who have never seen the memorial, on a normal day it looks like this... (I didn't take this picture, it didn't look like this on the day we went).

Each one of the empty chairs represents a person who died in the bombing. The arrangement of the chairs corresponds to the location in which the person died; so on the second floor of the building was a daycare, and in the second row of chairs there are 19 little chairs, representing the 19 children who died in the bombing.

Because of the special memorial service that had taken place that morning the barriers that normal prohibit visitors from walking amongst the chairs were taken down; and each chair had been decorated. Some with pictures, most with flowers, many with family pictures; even a few letters.

The whole situation really got to me, and I wandered around the chairs just crying. Especially when I looked at the things that had been placed on the children's chairs. I just couldn't help but think what my life would be like if Kaiya was suddenly taken away from me. When I walked up to the lookout area, there was a fenced off area with a small grassy area inside. I walked over to see what it was, and noticed there were crosses with little bells all along the fence.
The grassy area was the children's play ground, and there were 19 crosses, one for each of the children who died that day. Well, I stood at the edge of the area and just cried and cried. Then, a woman who I had never seen before walked up to me and said "You look like you could use a hug" and just hugged me. I didn't know her, she didn't know me, but she embraced me as a sister. This woman didn't know why I was so touched by the memorial, she just saw that I was crying and tried to help me.

It was then I started thinking about the assumptions we make about people. I looked over the memorial, and saw all different types of people, all in various states of contemplation. There were some who looked curious, as if they were just at another roadside attraction. But there were others who had the hurt but empty look of someone who had really lost something. We might walk past any of these people on the street, somewhere far away from the memorial, and think ill of them, maybe they cut us off in traffic, or gave us a dirty look as we walked by. But we do not know what hurt is hidden behind their face.

It was then that I decided to be more patient with those around me. People can be quick to judge, and sometimes I assume that I know why people look or act the way they do, but I don't. So this is my mid-year resolution: to not make assumptions about others and treat everybody within my sphere of influence more kindly.