I empathise with my peers and many colleagues who worked in the education system of this country and who gave their blood, sweat and tears, in many cases even their lives, to ensure that the children in their care were well taken care of, academically, personally and socially.
We met many times at netball, cricket and other sporting competitions. You saw the same faces at primary and secondary schools' arts and music festivals, Girl Guide rallies. You heard them talk about being in charge of fund-raisers for equipment for their schools, being secretaries of schools' PTAs, organising and making costumes for schools' carnival bands. Many even funded from their own pockets the costumes and first communion clothes for children in their classes.
All this and more was done many times at the expense of their own families and their physical and mental well-being.
Many are still waiting to get their pension and gratuity.
What is there to be empathic about, you might ask. I felt their pain when they heard the call for spreading peace and love to end the gun violence. I felt their pain because I know that all of those teachers, without exception, gave their love freely and expected nothing in return. They loved unconditionally. There are two kinds of love. There is love with conditions, and there is love without any expectations or conditions.
There are those who love with conditions. There are those who help and say that they are helping because they love, but expect you to be loyal and come whenever they call. There are those who will take care of you and expect that you will do their bidding. I empathise with those who were sitting, waiting to look at the TV news on July 27, 1990 and witnessed instead, young men who resembled young men in their classes, hugging guns and shouting threats to hostages. These young men apparently went looking for love in all the wrong places. The love they received had conditions.
I sincerely hope that the love that is now being touted is unconditional. This is what true love is.
Many of my peers and colleagues are enduring ill-health in their retirement because they worked their butts off unconditionally. They never asked the children to do anything illegal. Now I feel their hurt, disappointment and anger. One thing that we are very well aware of is that recalling the guns that were unleashed on our streets will be a Herculean task. Maybe we now have an ageing Hercules in our midst who will love us unconditionally. Is it true that age brings reason?
Anna Maria Mora