Just ONE

Lesson out of Rwanda #485:

The genocide did not kill a million people in Rwanda.

It killed ONE.

One person with hopes, dreams, and plans for a brighter future than the one their parents imagined.

One person with a family, maybe a few kids or one on the way, with friends and neighbors and people who loved him.  Whom he loved just as much.

It stole one person's father... or brother... or daughter.

Just one person.



And then another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another.
And another... one million times over.


In our warring, chaotic world, we are constantly bombarded with death tolls and casualty statistics, and we no longer feel the loss.  We've somehow misplaced an essential part of ourselves, the true human regret that comes from understanding that people in our world, people just like us, are dying for no other crime than being born into an unfortunate circumstance... the universe's large-scale and terribly cruel wrong-place-wrong-time scenario.

Each human life is meant to be a celebration of everything this world has to offer.  But when the universe has other plans, when evil men devise wicked schemes to upset the balance of peace and justice, terrible tragedies are inflicted upon us.  But we no longer feel the loss.  Somehow we've lost our empathy, our ability to imagine ourselves into another man's life and feel his pain.

Genocides, wars, terrorism, uprisings... no matter how many statistics you read, how many sound bytes you hear chronicling the latest list of casualties, remember this:
That number accounts for a multitude of individuals.  Single drops in an immense ocean of gone-too-soons.

The genocide in Rwanda, the war in Iraq, the Holocaust, the Arab Spring... none of them stole an abstract and meaningless number.

Just one.  Over and over and over again until we somehow lost our humanity.