Journeys
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Journeying to a Better Place
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My family did it.
They travelled across the border to a land of Freedom— the beginning of a legacy of challenging boundaries. At first I removed annoying blockades, defying the pre-conceived notions of others: “You can’t get hired at your age.” “You can’t climb 150 flights of stairs.” “You can’t fight City Hall.” Yet I can. Yet I did. And then I moved on to a territory foreign to me. One day I met a silent, in-himself man. His father told me, “Don’t bother with him. He has schizophrenia and hasn’t communicated for seven years.” That admonition served as a challenge. I had to set off on a journey to reach him. I had no training. I had no guidance. But I had to find the way. I couldn’t let him live alone in his head, with the onslaught of frightening paranoid thoughts being his reality. Somehow I created the right path. Within just weeks of meeting for the first time he came to me and said, “I want to talk with you.” The first sound of his voice was music to my ears. We bonded and concentrated on how worthy he is of friendship, of goodness, of peace of mind. What a journey he made crossing his border, leaving his known place behind. He took a big chance that he could expand his world in this new place— and he did. |
