The Silent (or Overlooked) Sufferers
I am typing these words just a couple of days after a big “kiss cam story” broke. By the time you read this post, that story may be forgotten by most people. There is a good chance that something else may have captured the short attention span of most people by then. There are some things about all of that which bother me.
The first of those things is the reaction of some people to this story. You may remember that two married people were shown on the “crowd camera” at a concert. They really seemed to be enjoying themselves.
That is, they were enjoying themselves until they saw themselves on the huge screen. The problem was that – as I understand it – although they were married, they were not married to one another.
In the days following this incident, people have intentionally “recreated” that picture at other events. Mascots of sports teams have posed with fans at games in much the same way as those two people did on the “big screen.” Comedians have had a field day with this. Social media posts have been created to poke fun at all of this. The lead singer for the group at the concert even seemed to poke fun at what happened when he “warned” those in attendance at the next concert.
What seems to be overlooked in all of this is that some real people with real feelings were going through the anguish of being betrayed and embarrassed. I seriously doubt that they thought that there was anything amusing about the situation.
In the aftermath of that news story, I saw a picture that at least purported to be a picture of the wife and children of the man whose image was on that huge screen. As far as I can determine, it may or may not have been them. It might have merely been a picture of a “typical” mother and children eating alone. The point of the picture I saw was what captured my attention. The point was that the guy at the concert could/should have been home with his family instead of being where he was and doing what he was doing.
That picture – not the one of the couple at the concert – is the one that prompted this post. While seemingly the entire world was “yucking it up,” a wife and some children could very easily have been in tears. While people still may be making jokes, there are some people who are trying to make some sense out of all of this. Have we forgotten or overlooked the people who are suffering?
As I mentioned earlier, there is more than one thing that prompted this post. While I am afraid that we may overlook the people who are hurting, I am also concerned about the short attention span of a lot of us (including me).
By now, our attention may be focused on something entirely different from the “kiss cam incident.” A new twist in some political scandal, another celebrity break-up, the economy, a war, a natural disaster, and/or any number of other things could have already pushed this story onto the “back burner” of our minds. Meanwhile those same real people with real feelings are undoubtedly still really suffering.
As I tried to put some thoughts together for this post, I began thinking of other events and people. For example, I also started thinking about the hundreds of people who continue to deal with the loss of loved ones and devastation of property caused by the flooding that took place in Texas less than a month before you read these words. Have we already pushed that story and those people to the back of our minds because something else has momentarily grabbed our attention?
I also started thinking about people who live in a town about twenty miles or so from where I’m sitting as I type these words. The town suffered a great deal of destruction caused by what has been called “a tornado family.” The town does not even look like it did before all of that happened.
Obviously some lives are not – and never will be – the same. In fact, over twenty people in that one community lost their lives because of those tornadoes. The total number of lives lost along the entire path of those tornadoes was close to ninety.
All of that took place over three-and-a-half years ago. In that amount of time, many other things have vied for our attention and grabbed the headlines.
Meanwhile, people in Mayfield, Kentucky are still dealing with grief and loss. I wonder how many of them are suffering in silence as I go about my daily life without giving much (if any) thought to them or their circumstances.
I’m also wondering how many widows or widowers are wishing that somebody would interrupt their routine long enough to spend some time with them. How many people are elderly, in bad health, lonely, or in all three of these conditions? Do you think that they could be wishing that somebody would care enough to call or come to see them?
How many children no longer have a mommy or daddy at home because of divorce, desertion, or death? How many of them would like for some responsible adult to spend some time with them?
Do you think that the wife and children of the man caught on the big screen wishes that somebody would stop laughing at him long enough to cry with them? Do you think that there could be others like them?
I guess that these types of scenarios and questions could go on and on, but maybe I’ve made a point. If not, at least I’ve caused myself to do some thinking and some serious self-examination. After all, I claim to be a follower of the One who noticed the unnoticed and remembered the forgotten.
I need to try to do better about “being there” for people and to try to “be there” for the long haul.
How about you?
AUTHOR: Jim Faughn
