October 15th 2010 started out like any normal ordinary day; I woke up screamed internally for coffee walked the dog and wished for just ten more minutes of sleep.
I had weird dreams the night before, of what I do not remember because hey my life is a series of un-ending dreams.
I do however remember going to bed thinking how unfair life was..
..
I had recently looked up my old high school bully and found that the evil one was still beautiful, married to a gorgeous rich guy and living on a beach in freaking California; How utterly descriptive of my life.
While I sit here twenty pounds overweight, missing my best friend who recently killed himself and wishing I had a gorgeous man who would ride me off into the sunset, she was living the life I had always thought I wanted.
That day was especially exciting for me, because Surrey Urban Mission and the Surrey Homelessness Task force had just completed "Connect Day" a crazy busy day in which all of the services guided towards those under the poverty line or close to it, could come together in one large group.
We had a massive pancake breakfast, free lunch and hair cuts...
vet care and free clothes, medical needs where taken care of, and as this only happens once a year it's kind of a big deal.
So you can understand after all that work and worry, anxiety and stress how glad I was to watch other people work for a change, that was my single most focus upon entering the arena for "We" day.
For those of you who don't know I must say it is time for you to get out from under the dust cloud that is your life and experience life outside your world a bit.
This is a day of inspirational speeches and youth involvement created by Marc and Craig Kielburger.
I was seriously looking forward to this, mainly because I remember Craig from his days on Oprah when it all began; I remember being in awe that someone our age was on Oprah talking about changing the world.
I thought he was nuts, and as it turns out I was incredibly and disturbingly right.
The man is clearly deranged, I mean he could really be doing anything with his life and instead he chooses to go to Africa one of the most dangerous remote parts of the planet to build schools...
as I said deranged.
He has the ear of president's, the world is literally his oyster, and he is changing the world one footstep at a time.
Apparently deranged isn't always a negative personality trait.
I am digressing because I am still trying incredibly hard to wrap my mind around what I saw this past Friday afternoon, Jesse Jackson giving a voice to kids who in their everyday lives would never admit to being afraid to go to school, who would never admit to knowing someone who brought a weapon to class, or to wanting to kill themselves, children admitted to being on drugs, in an everyday occurrence at school this would never happen.
However on this day Mr.
Jesse Jackson made sure that's exactly what parents and teachers saw.
Martin Sheen spoke of growing up in the sixties, of watching as Martin Luther King was jailed and subsequently assassinated; speaking of John F.
Kennedy was taken far before his time.
Talking about what it was like to lose these men simply because they believed in a world where we all, lived in peace regardless of color or religion.
There were two men there who are not famous, they do not have the ears of President's and Kings and Queens, but their voices, their stories ring out none the less.
Both of these men nearly lost their lives to cancer, and survived.
One of these men lost both of his legs, and in fact his body from the waist down, and as they spoke of travelling to Africa, to build a school for children so that they may learn I sat there tears gathering in my eyes and was forced to ask myself...
"What the hell do I have to complain about?" I listened as Craig and Matt explained the song of Freedom and had 16000 kids screamed "FREEDOM" at the top of their lungs over and over again and I said to myself "I want to be on that stage one day" I watched as children cried tears for their brothers and sisters in Africa, in Mexico, in Guatemala and China, and said to myself "I want to watch these children achieve their dreams" and more importantly I watched as the Rogers Stadium Staff stood in shock and cried actual physical salty tears when they realized how many children in Canada are affected by drugs and violence every single day...
at school.
As I write this I am in my head creating a list of men and women who work for some of the largest companies in Canada and I am planning to harass and bug each and every one of them, because I plan to go to Kenya, to China, To Chile and to Every other country on the planet I can to help.
To build a school, to gather water, plant a garden whatever it takes.
Because really compared to men with no legs, children who cannot learn because they must find water first, or men and women who watched the most brilliant minds of our time murdered for the sake of peace..
..
what the hell do I have to do with my life? The one thing I take away from Marc and Craig is that no matter how many times one person, ten persons or twenty person's say no...
there are a thousand, a hundred thousand and a million more who will say yes.
So the next time you're sitting back drinking your rather expensive Starbucks coffee think about the fact that five Canadian Dollars and Five American Dollars can buy ten families a meal, for an entire month somewhere far far away.