Today I witnessed a heart-wrenching scene involving an elderly couple at a pharmacy - so heart-wrenching, I can not write about it. I wanted to dissapear - it felt like walking in on someone in the bathroom or seeing a couple have sex - my presence was violation of them, and in witnessing, I too, felt violated.
On the way home, I thought about Lot's life looking upon Sdom's destruction and being turned into a pillar of salt. It's impossible for us to understand precisely what went on, but presumably there was something akin to the walking-in-on-sex-or-the-bathroom situation, and instead of wanting to dissapear, Lot's wife strove to get closer.
It is paradoxical to think that listening and seeing, two senses which can be used as great acts of empathy and kindness, can also be used for cruelty - and indicative of the human state, for God has granted us freedom of choice, and essentially every human quality can be used for kindness or cruelty. The choice is ours.
Listening and seeing are also gateways: They are the way we let things into our mind, and I was wondering, in a strange way, if for women, sex is more akin to these actions, because it is letting someone in, whereas for men, it is more like speaking, because it is letting something out. That is not to say that women are passive - I actually consider listening and seeing to both be extremely active actions (how redundant of me) when done correctly.
Of course, this stray thought that fluttered in might be no more than a pretty butterfly, shiny and ungraspable, but I find the idea intriguing - and it leads into the concept of women as better listeners and as possesing a greater wisdom, and all those other things that as a feminist, I'm not supposed to write about.
When I got home, I started thinking about my grandparents, and how much I had loved them, and how, even with all the time I spent with them in various hospitals, I regretted every moment I did not spend with them in their final days, and every day I did not call or tell them that I love them.
I do not think we can ever regret having loved too much, only having loved too little. I have never known an act of kindness* I have regretted, even when the outcome has hurt me.
So let us all look and listen, a little harder, to those in our lives who matter to us, and hug them a little tighter before we go to bed, and may we only witness happy occasions.
* kidness, as distinct from להיות פריירית, שעל זה רב הזמן אני כן מתחרתת
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