(FL) Orlando -Will your Thanksgiving include compassion? Great Story

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My word: Jacqueline Bodnar

The dictionary describes compassion as the sympathetic consciousness of others' distress, together with a desire to alleviate it. Wouldn't a compassionate world be filled with a mutual caring for one another?As the sun began to drop behind the tall buildings, my husband and I walked along the ocean with our son, 2, and daughter, 4, in tow, as we have many times before. "Scallop" or "coquina," we'd call out, picking up seashells.As we walked, we came across two small fish on the shore. "They're dead," my daughter softly spoke. As we continued on, I noticed a small fish, which could fit in the palm of my hand, flopping on the white sandy beach."Wait, I want to do it," my daughter exclaimed as I rushed to scoop it up. "Let me do it," she shrieked.Quickly cupping the small fish in her tiny hands, she sprinted into the waves and released it.

Turning to us, boasting with pride, she yelled, "I just saved the fish. I sent it back to its mother."In the days that followed, she glowed each time she spoke of her good deed.Two days later, I set out for my evening walk around the neighborhood ponds that display "fishing restricted to residents only" signs. Fumbling to untangle my headphones to begin, I watched as a middle-aged father hovered over a blue plastic cooler. Next to him stood a boy around 12 years old, and next to him was boy just a couple of years senior to my daughter."Hurry, get some water, Dad; he's going to die, hurry," the boy shouted. "What?" the father curtly replied. The boy repeated himself, with more urgency than before. "We're not putting water in there; come on, let's go," he snapped, as he turned back toward the pond, pole in hand. The boy stood there, quietly staring at the flopping fish.Compassion is something we should all be teaching our

children. The problem is that we as a society don't all agree on who or what is worthy of it.This week a young girl saved the life of a suffocating fish, while a boy near her age learned that the life has little to no value.But this is not a story about fish. This is a story about compassion and our actions, which teach the next generation. Those beliefs extend far beyond how we treat fish. It's about how we treat our neighbors, citizens and animals, whether here or abroad.According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 116 million households are potential gathering places for this Thanksgiving's celebration and there will be an estimated $4.3 billion in turkey sales during 2008.I know what I'll be teaching my family about compassion as we sit down to a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast. Have you given thought to what you will be teaching yours?Jacqueline Bodnar is a freelance writer who lives in Port Orange.

 

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