Pat Parker
22 September 2011 at 2:23am
Posts: 2683 (0 today)
Status: offline
Hi There Lunies!
Firstly, this is "non-PG" and I am ever grateful for the new department here, called, "Miscellanous".
Secondly, this is a story that I had written some time ago -- heaven only knows if it made the 6-month cut-off for being archived or kept and heaven also knows that I'm not about to spend time looking for it. Instead, I'll give a brief synopsis of what I had originally posted and then take it from there. Please bear with me (if you're interested) . . .
A few months ago, I had posted something that had been written and posted on facebook by my great niece, Morgan. Basically, Morgan had written a "commentary" -- addressed to the general public, I suppose and it concerned how people should be treated. She was 11+ at the time and I found it very insightful, well-written for an 11+ year old and I commented to her on facebook how very proud I was of her for having this attitude about people and life (it basically had to do with bullying, not treating people with respect because of how they looked, acted, etc.).
At that time, I shared the commentary here and although I was very impressed with Morgan's character, there was a part of me that was very worried about the commentary because I feared it was being written about herself. Although I couldn't really understand that because I know Morgan and have seen her interact with people of all ages and I was surprised to think that she might be being treated meanly by people (although I know the reality is that she will be as we all are at some points in our lives -- it's just life as we know it). I received lots of nice comments from lunies here and I always appreciated that.
All these many months later, I learned today that during the school year last year, Morgan, was in fact "bullied" to some extent and when she wrote that commentary, it was written for the people at school who had sort of bullied her. Truth is, she wrote that commentary for one of her friends -- a girl who was constantly being harassed, teased, bullied (pick whatever word works for you) -- Morgan was this girl's one and only friend. Morgan not only wrote the commentary, but was in a few scuffles with others at school (who were also Morgan's friends). Turns out that Morgan was not being singled out or bullied for anything except that she was defending her one friend who was being bullied and singled out by several kids at school.
After learning this today, on "Peace Day", I am even more proud of Morgan. Not only does she have the right attitude, but she's also not afraid to stand her ground. I suppose my only advice to her would be to be prepared to be left standing alone sometimes -- even if others want to stand there with you. I know the feeling, experienced it many times in my life -- and still do sometimes. It's okay, it's not the end of the world and eventually, you'll see that you're really not "alone" in trying to be fair to everyone -- there's a lot more of "us" than "them"!
Kind regards to all. Thanks for reading.