I am making an effort to be proactive. E-mailed and called media outlets, called city clerks, created Internet groups, posted pictures, retrieved little bits of the past and set them about to remind people.
This is hard, I was reminded while doing this of something "She who must not be named" once posted in her blog. When I first read the post I was shocked. Most of my readers by now know of the stupidity of this issue (read earlier post.) The following is taken from her blog, posted after she called the Del Ray Beach police department (an action, if done with the correct spirit, could have been amazingly kind given our recent past.)
Quote:
I did something for someone else that I would have done for myself. I knew that I could because I am relentless in my pursuit for anything I set my mind to. My intentions were not that of caring or compassion, but of the need to prove things are easily done when you choose to do them. Even if the result still remains questionable, at least I started it or it would have never happened.
When you make a decision about the importance of something or someone in your life and it goes away, you get it back. You don't whine or blog about it or sit on a pity pot. You go get it and you don't give up until you find it. I accomplished this feat in 3 days in the comfort of my own home and it was free. With the limited information I had and my only tool being a way with words and the Internet, I got further than anyone had in 2 years.
If my sister was ever missing there would be hell to pay and nothing or no one would ever discourage me from finding her. I would hope she would do the same for me. And yes I will try not to break my arm patting myself on the back.
Funny, not surprisingly much that was asserted in this statement is not true. Finding someone that is missing is not easy (a fact proved by all of the missing persons websites and support groups out there.)
It is apparently, very easy to disassociate yourself from the feelings of others.
I don't get it, I mean, the thing that is so odd about this is that the words listed above seem to be born of the same disregard for human feeling that seems to have been visited upon my sister.
I have a new mantra, taken from Edna St. Vincent Milay:
Dirge Without Music
I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
-- Edna St. Vincent Millay
Here is the deal, this isn't over. It will not be accomplished in the "comfort of my own home" that is not where things get done. It will likely cost some money, it will certainly hurt. I refuse to let stupid, lazy, frightened, ugliness, born of misplaced anger define me. I will never understand how someone can use the pain of another to preach moral superiority.
To continue, I had a conversation today with my mom, not directly related to the former blog writer quoted above, but in reference to others of the same mentality. It made me think about some of this in a new light.
Here is the deal, humanity may, for a short time, glorify brazen commercialism, violence, sloth and the like. Those things have been here for a long time.
At the same time there are also the qualities of kindness and love. The willingness to fight (truly, not just with rhetoric) for what is right.
The two are not entirely un-separated, we all fight for one side or the other from time to time. I am a hypocrite, I sit and bitch, I let anger be my motivating factor etc.
Here is the question, which set of these qualities is ultimately responsible for the loss of my sister?
Which qualities do I want to define me from now on?
