Holocaust

When I was seven years old, I climbed to the top of my treehouse with the children of one of my father's business associates. Our parents were inside talking over the requisite glasses of wine, and we had been released to expend our energy as kids often do -- running amok under the stars. But this night was different.

On this night, cross-legged on the wooden planks, the heat of a Memphis summer pressing down upon us, we had other matters of importance. As the fireflies danced around us, their elder son began to impart his new found knowledge. He must have been only ten at the time, but to me, he seemed ancient as he talked about dividing fractions and Hitler's attempt at annihilating an entire race.

This conversation was only three weeks shy of my third grade lesson on the Holocaust, but this hushed speech left a greater impression on me than any school room lecture ever did. That night sparked my crusade for learning anything about the disenfranchised and the persecuted. I think that's the reason that to this day, I still have a tendency to "collect" strays. I seem to draw people who are drifting in life.

They stick around long enough to become comfortable with themselves again, and, more often than not, as soon as they have found their bearings, they slowly begin to realize just how little we have in common. Some of them stick around and have become some of my closest friends, but many have drifted out of my life much the same way they came into it.

I wish I could say that their disappearances brought great sadness, but I don't feel sad -- I'm grateful. Grateful that both of our lives were brought together, even for such a short period of time, and grateful that in some small way I could say that I have made a difference in another person's life.