Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Stories like Eleonora's made me wonder if it's just
too hard
to love people. If having
a family is really just making yourself vulnerable to the inevitable pains of life lurking
around each and every corner. Maybe I wasn't running. Maybe I just didn't want to be hurt.
She cleared her throat, trying to sweep away the pain that filled the quiet mosque, “But
not all of the people did bad things to everybody. Most of them were police and the private
military, but not the people.” She touched her heart as she continued, “The people did not
commit those crimes. So we learn to forgive. We must remember that no matter who we
are, where we come from, we are human first.”
We sat in silence for a while. I looked around the beautiful mosque, which still had
pieces missing from being bombed in the war. As much as Eleonora spoke to the hope of
peace, I couldn't help but wonder: How do you forgive when your families are stolen in
the night? How do you forget when what you hold sacred is shattered to pieces, and the life
you once knew simply gone?
I know that all of us have good and evil in us. We are all capable of hurting oth-
ers—some on grand scales, many more on small ones. And it all comes back to the same
flawed idea: that somehow one person is more important than another. I know that for a
long time I was mired in that selfishness. I only thought about myself, about what I wanted.
I lived in the lonely belief that my feelings were somehow more important than those
around me. And then one day I woke up in so much pain; I realized that the rewards of my
selfishness would never outweigh the pain of isolation.
As we left the mosque, serendipity brought me up close and personal to someone who
had truly lived and embodied selflessness. Mother Teresa. Or should I say a statue of the
great lady. Bronze—not gold.
I'd admired Mother Teresa as much as the next chap, but I had never really learned too
much about her. And then suddenly, I found myself in front of that statue, and I was abso-
lutely mesmerized. Maybe that's the point of building these permanent fixtures—to forever
inspire others by reminding them of the paths that some have chosen. I had always assumed
Mother Teresa was an Indian woman, but as I found out that day, she had gone far from
home in order to carry out her work. Because Mother Teresa was actually of Albanian des-
cent—I knew there was a reason I got that tattoo!
Born in Macedonia, she left her people for Calcutta at the age of seventeen because she
wanted to be of service to those who suffered most. She believed that it was only through
loving one another that we might ever find love within ourselves. She had given up her
home for a different vision of reality, for her dream to help the world. I looked up at the
