Wednesday, October 24, 2012Tonight's picture was taken in October of 2006, at a Fall festival. This was how we spent many of our weekends in the month of October, visiting different fall festivals and picking pumpkins. I love this photo Peter took of Mattie and I with the wonderful pumpkin (which was real) behind us. As you probably can see, Mattie looked just like me and we even smiled the same way.
Quote of the day: I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go. ~ Rachel Joy Scott
As promised, last night I went to a presentation given by an organization called Rachel's Challenge. I had never heard of this organization before until my friend Heidi told me about it over lunch. Yesterday afternoon while I was working at home, I had a lovely surprise. I received a phone call from Heidi's daughter, Isabel. Since Mattie's death, my direct communication with the younger generation has clearly dropped off. So to me this phone call was very special. Isabel called me to share her perspective of the Rachel's Challenge presentation she saw earlier in the day at her school. I could hear Isabel's enthusiasm and I noticed that she could easily recount many of the messages conveyed in the presentation. Naturally these are Isabel's skills, but it also told me that the speaker had a way of capturing his audience. Therefore, I was intrigued to go to last night's presentation. Keep in mind this speaker addressed Isabel's school during the day and then the parents and other family members of these teenagers in the evening. In all honesty, I love to learn and I especially love learning about different subject matters when it is told through personal stories and experiences.
The presentation ran for 90 minutes and Craig Scott was the speaker. Based on my calculations, Craig has to be 29 years of age. Craig is a survivor of the Columbine High School Shootings. To refresh your memory about this tragedy..... The Columbine High School massacre was a school shooting which occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a shooting spree in which a total of 12 students and one teacher were murdered. They also injured 21 other students directly, with three other people being injured while attempting to escape the school. The pair then committed suicide. It is the fourth-deadliest school massacre in United States history, after the 1927 Bath School disaster (in Michigan), 2007 Virginia Tech massacre and the 1966 University of Texas massacre, and remains the deadliest for an American high school.
Craig was only 16 years old when this massacre occurred. On that day, his sister, Rachel Joy who was 17 years old, was the first student to be killed. She was eating lunch outside on the grass with a friend and was shot several times and then dealt the final bullet execution style. Keep in mind that Eric and Dylan (the perpetrators) were seniors, in the same graduating class as Rachel. Craig said that his sister was killed because she believed in God. In fact, it is reported that right before being shot in the head, Eric asked her if she still believed in God. When she responded positively, Eric then told her that she could join him and shot her in the head.
Meanwhile Craig was inside the school's library with several other teenagers. His teacher told the students to hide under desks, but that did not accomplish much. The killers entered the library and went on a shooting spree killing Craig's two friends sitting right next to him under the desk. One of the teen's was named Isaiah, who was one of the few African American students at the School. Before Isaiah was shoot, the killers spewed the most hateful racial slurs from their mouths. Words that still linger within Craig's head. After his friends were shot, he felt as if his ears from bleeding from the sound. But a voice inside him kept him calm and actually that voice helped him lead several students out of that library and to safety. He has no idea why he wasn't killed, other than his mission on this earth was not completed.
Craig told us his story and that of his sister. His sister, Rachel Joy, had everything going for her. She was bright, beautiful, and had a heart of gold. Integrated within his presentation were videos and snapshots of Rachel and many of her actual journal writings for us to view. Rachel kept a journal and in this journal she made it very clear that she was put on this earth to accomplish something important, that she wasn't going to be average. She also felt that she was going to die young (of course from a mental health standpoint, one could say these were all red flags, except this girl was deeply religious, and this spiritual side of her guided her every decision). In so many ways, while reading through Rachel's own words, you feel as if you are reading a prophesy. Being Catholic, I grew up learning about the ridicule, challenges, and the process ordinary people went through who eventually became saints. Rachel believed that she was God's messenger, and carried out his missions on earth. The whole notion sounds far fetched and it would almost be easy to say that those left behind created this fantasy. But these were Rachel's own words, written in her journal. Words that her family and friends were very familiar with, they heard it enough times. Craig recounted many of Rachel's acts of kindness. Whether is was standing up for kids being bullied at school, being a pen pal and friend to a teen who had no family and whose life was heading down the pathway to crime and drugs, or helping a motorist who broke down by the side of the road. At night no less! She was on a daily mission to do good, and she believed that kindness and compassion were contagious. Meaning that she wanted to react a CHAIN REACTION. These are her words.
Ironically Eric and Dylan also wrote a journal and kept a blog. Within their writings they too used the words.... CHAIN REACTION. However, when they used that term, they had something evil in mind. They wanted to be known and admired for killing people and wanted their acts to be copy catted around the Country. Amazing the same two words, but used in two very different contexts.
Craig goes around the Country educating teens and families. In a way this is character education at its finest. Character education is taught in schools now, but just like everything else it is not taught in a thought provoking and meaningful way. In addition, as I have said time and time again, schools are so busy with monitoring grades and student academic achievement (which by the way continues to keep falling, so this one sided educational approach isn't working!), that true life skills have fallen by the way side. Craig and I have had different life experiences and we are different ages. Yet our traumas have enabled us to talk the same language, which surprised me. We can cut through the meaningless of everyday life, and focus upon what truly matters. Yes learning math, science, history, and English are important, but so are kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. Rachel's Challenge makes character education come alive and they use hands on activities to help build trust among school groups. It is through trust that students can open up about their thoughts and feelings and become vulnerable to help one another, and as a result students can see their lives as being connected and part of a larger community.
Since the content Craig presented last night is very heavy, he interspersed humor within his presentation. Whether it was through funny video clips, or when he actually got up and danced. He even got the audience hugging each other, swaying to the music, and singing. Craig gave our group extra kudos because we actually sang..... "lean on me" while swaying to the music. So there were lighter moments throughout the night. But even within the lighter moments, the goal to this human hugging and swaying, was meaningful. Physical connection reminds us that we are human and touch is a number one way to bond people together in a short period of time.
Craig ended the presentation with a video. One of the final snapshots in the video is a picture of Anne Frank next to Rachel Joy. Rachel admired Anne Frank tremendously and side by side, it was uncanny how much they looked alike.
At the end of the evening, Heidi, her friends, and I went up to thank Craig. We all spoke to him independently. While I was on line waiting to talk with him, a group of teenagers were behind me. They were chatting with each other, and said that they found him inspiring and they wanted to stand up and do something positive for their school. So clearly this fellow resonated with ALL ages. When I finally got up to Craig, I told him briefly that I understood a profound loss, since I lost Mattie. I told him that many of the things he spoke about resonated with me. After all, we are talking about the death of children. I got his anger, I understood his feelings of wanting to disengage with the world, and I also know all too well how difficult it is to get up in front of an audience to share your story. To us it is a story, to him, this is his life.
Craig invited everyone in the audience to take a challenge. A challenge that I am sure he ends every presentation with, whether he is talking with teens or adults. The challenge was to tell five people in your life how important they are to you. Words of kindness are amazing gifts to receive, and making someone happy and feel appreciated has a way of reverberating throughout our society. The moral message is that we all have the power within us to cause a chain reaction, but we have to have the courage to start it. So I pass along the challenge to you, it doesn't take much time or energy. Just consider sending five people you know a message of thanks and let them know you appreciate them. It turns out the gift goes both ways, because when we think outside of ourselves and care for others, this has an amazing affect on ourselves as well. There were great points of sadness for me throughout the presentation, but none greater than knowing that one of my five people couldn't be Mattie. He is not around for me to tell him..... "I love you and you are important to me." Those of you lucky enough to have a child alive, at the very least, if you don't identify five people to contact, make sure you at least tell your children how you feel about them. It is a gift that can't be shared and verbalized enough!
I attached this link in case you wanted to learn more about Rachel's Challenge. It is a short four minute video. http://www.rachelschallenge.org/big-picture/programs/
I would like to end tonight's posting with a lovely message I received this morning from my friend, Heidi. I was deeply touched by this message. Heidi wrote, "I love the quote and the last paragraph of last night’s blog. I believe GOD is working through you and you are making such a difference for so many people and helping keep Mattie’s memory alive. Although I never knew your precious little boy, I feel from getting to know you and reading your blog what a special soul he is…."
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