We all have memorable experiences. A first kiss. A game-winning score. Some of our best experiences are poignant, while others are simply outlandish. (I remember leaning over the side of a fishing boat and seeing the basketball-size eye of a whale rise up for glimpse of me before rolling back under a dark wave.)
While many experiences are memorable, there are a few that change our lives thereafter. One such moment for me was a TV news report on the unending string of genocidal wars in Africa. The report — which lasted less than a minute — showed footage of a young woman in a refugee camp. She was very thin and had lost most of her hair. In her arms was an infant. The child, swollen from hunger, attempted to suckle the women’s chin. Finding no milk, it would cry for a few seconds, and then try again.
I’ll never forget the woman. The resignation on her face. The stare at nothing. The strained muscles on her skeletal body looked as fragile as old rubber bands. There is a song by the Nigerian-born singer Sade that could speak to this woman’s fate: “She cries to the heaven above, there is a stone in my heart, she lives a life she didn’t choose, and it hurts like brand-new shoes”.
While I wasn’t much older than 17, I couldn’t reconcile this image and what I was taught to believe about life. I didn’t understand the unnecessary suffering of the innocent and how so few seem to care. Looking back I now know this is where and when I starting looking for an answer.
