Wow, things have been crazy here on the b2 front. Drama, drama, drama! So, we apologize for being bad bloggers and not posting for the past two weeks. We’ll get our crap together.
So, last Friday we, me and Bobby, were walking into the local grocery store and we were stopped by a woman standing outside (did that sound like the beginning of a joke?). She walked up to us and began speaking to us in Spanish. This happens to us a lot.
Because we are Hispanic, our fellow Latinos just assume we speak the language.
And we should.
But, sadly, we don’t.
I blame my Mama for not teaching me to speak Spanish. Weird thing is, I can understand it (most of the time). I can even read a lot of it but I cannot hold a conversation in Spanish with someone. Bobby, on the other hand, can barely speak the English language and tends to make up his own words…a lot. When he does try to speak Spanish, we all just want him to stop…and my Mama just laughs at his attempts. He’s like having a parrot. When it talks, it sounds like it knows what it’s talking about, but in truth it’s just repeating what it’s learned. And thus we give you Bobby, my dear husband.
Because we don’t speak Spanish, many of our fellow Latinos consider us an embarrassment to our own culture. Which, of course, we are not. We would both love to learn to speak Spanish. It’s one of the things on my Bucket List. And we were not able to pass this gift on to our own kid (bad, bad, bad parents). However, we stand before you today unable to communicate in any other spoken language but English.
So, Bobby had to explain to the woman that, “we no speaka Espanol”.
Awkward.
It always is.
After exchanging broken words with this woman, (we later learned her name is Victoria) we found that she was looking for a ride. In broken English, she asked us if we could give her a ride to her car that was in the next town about 15-20 miles away.
Now, me and Bobby looked at each other trying to decide if this was truly a woman that needed a ride or some kind of scam. Sad, huh? Sad that, in today’s world, we even have to question helping our fellow humankind out. I mean she looked pretty harmless. She was an older woman and she seemed sincere. But how many times do we turn on the TV nowadays and see some horrific story about someone pretending they’re abandoned and all along it was some kind of trap? So, we just tried to talk to her for a bit to get a feel for the situation. You know. See what our instincts told us.
Our instincts told us to give her a ride.
And so, we did.
There is more to the story but the point I’m trying to make is…well, I’m actually trying to make a couple of points…that we gave her a hand because it felt like it was the right thing to do. We had other things to do. We were both tired, hungry and grumpy and just meant to make a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up a couple of things. And it had been a really long day for both of us and we were glad the week was over. We could have said no, gone into the store and gotten what we needed, had dinner and called it a day. But, it didn’t matter what our plan was. Our plan changed the minute Victoria walked up to us.
During our ride back, we talked about how sad it was that we even considered not giving her a ride. I mean, it’s not our responsibility to give a complete stranger a ride. Is it? What if it was some kind of set up? It wasn’t. She really did just need a ride (of course, use your own instincts and best judgment when lending a helping hand). We can’t help everyone that asks. Can we? Probably not. But, if it is within our power to help…shouldn’t we?
There are many amazing people that devote their time and hearts as volunteers to great causes and organizations.
We also know that there are many that only look out for themselves. And to those people we say, “Change your attitude dammit!”
And there are those that care very much and want to help but are stretched so thin that they just don’t have the time. They tell themselves, “one day I’ll volunteer…one day when I have more time”. This is the category that a lot of well meaning people fall into. This was us. Until we got this crazy idea that we’re doing now. Extreme? Yes! Crazy? Umm…maybe, just a tad. But committed.
It’s time for some change. I watched this video awhile back and when we gave Victoria a ride, for some reason, it made me think of this video.
Some may see this video as a political thing. And to each his own.
We do not.
For us, this is not about politics. This is not about religion, race, sexual orientation, fear, hate or any of the other crap that we let get in our way.
For us, this song is about people. Because, in the end, regardless of politics, religion, race, sexual orientation, wealth or lack of it and so on, we are all human.
We are all born and we all die.
It’s what we do with the time in between that matters.
So, are you a Born Again American? Watch the video and see if the song and meaning moves you. I know it did me.
