Hope from #40,966

     I don't like to admit that the days of hanging with my college roommate and best friend watching The Oprah Winfrey Show before lacrosse practice have been long gone for over twenty years.  Some of her episodes I will never forget, including the fifty single men from Alaska who were looking for love because their state had an eight to one male-female ratio.
     Other shows were not such light fare, and nor will today's post be.
     One show I especially remember featured Holocaust survivors and their experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II.  My memory of the details are sketchy, but I distinctly recall that it introduced me to Victor Frankl and his book, Man's Search For Meaning.
     According to Frankl, “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how.”
     I believe that. When hard times happen, we can get through them if understand we have a purpose. We can get through seemingly impossible circumstances if our lives have meaning. We have something to live for. We have hope.
     Hope. I guess that's a word I've been thinking a lot about these past few days.
     It started last Thursday night when I saw that my best friend "liked" a Facebook page called The Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover Foundation. Out of curiosity, I checked it out.
     What I found was sad, disturbing, infuriating.
     Carl was an eleven-year old boy who took his own life in April of 2009 because he was tormented by bullies at school.
     How many other young people have taken their own lives because of bullying these past few years? How many others are going to put out their light because they can no longer endure the pain each day brings?
     What can we do to give these children hope?
     Sirdeaner Walker, Carl's mother, has since dedicated her life to ending bullying of all kinds and is calling on others to join her.  Right now, over 85,000 have visited http://www.standtogether.tv/ and have taken the pledge to not bully and to intervene safely whenever possible.  When you visit the site, you are assigned a number in the order in which you join.  I am #40,966.
     Joining the stand against bullying requires a lot of work, but we can't afford not to invest our time and effort into its prevention. It is not a problem that will go away simply because we hold a school assembly, run celebrity commercials, or hang anti-bullying posters around school hallways. These things matter, but not as much as you and I and people everywhere.
     Creating hope for victims of bullying insists that parents, teachers, coaches, and other adults everywhere reinforce the message with strong, swift, and sure intervention.  Too many grown-ups are  looking the other way or are not certain how to how to handle situations effectively. Some simply don't want to be bothered.  Too few adults are decisively demanding that a bully stop name-calling, taunting, teasing, even physically harrassing another human being:
     "Stop now. That doesn't happen in my school."
     "Stop now. That doesn't happen in my classroom."
     "Stop now. That doesn't happen on my field."
     "Stop now. That doesn't happen in my house."
     "Stop now. That doesn't happen here."
     And if the bully doesn't stop, he or she gets punished.  Because if they don't, someone else does. Just ask Sirdeaner Walker.
     I hope that others will consider standing alongside Carl's mother, and I hope that we each ask ourselves what we can personally do to permanently stamp this absolutely mandatory message onto our collective heart, mind, and soul.
     And I hope one more child who is thinking he can't live one more day...I pray that he feels hope for a better day and that that day will indeed come.
     It is too late for Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover.  It's too late for Phoebe Prince. It's too late for Jamey Rodemeyer.  It's too late for too many children already.
     My hope: not one more child. 
     Have a wonderful Monday...and if you see someone mistreat someone else, tell them to stop. Our youth are counting on it.