Day 828

This morning, as I walked my Goldens, I saw and heard something that brought tears to my eyes. As we rounded a corner, I first heard screams of delight and cheering from many voices. Approaching the middle school, I realized it was orientation for the incoming sixth graders. The jubilant cacophony came from a group of cheerleaders who were welcoming each student and bus at the top of their lungs! It still makes my throat tighten as my eyes become moist just remembering the scene.

The older I get, the more touched I become with this kind of scenario. I know that not every student embraced this welcome with open arms, but most probably felt the love! For me, as an observer, I wondered why it brought me to tears.

As we age, we gain insights and empathy to life’s events. In my younger years, I would have thought the welcome was sweet, but that would be the extent of my feelings. Now, I look at these students arriving with anxious hearts and I can feel their fears subside with such a display of welcome.

Every experience in our lives resides deeply embedded in who we are. Each new event changes our view of the world around us. We KNOW how people feel when facing the unknown. We know the feelings of loss, victory, defeat and any other emotion that others are experiencing. As we grow older, most of us surround our very being with greater understanding and empathy…because we have been in those shoes.

Today, I was witness to so many students who were greeted, or were welcomed, to a new world. They added another layer of compassion to their young souls as they can now empathize with others in that situation.

All Ranger and Lilly wanted to do was greet each student with a wag of the tail and Golden smile, but we were just observers. Gently nudging them towards home, I tucked this memory away with a smile and a nod to the excitement I still can recall as a new school year was about to start.