Where Has Our Respect for Others Gone? – Reflections From the Kitchen Sink

Early in my career, I was offered a university assistant coaching job, and during the contract negotiations, the head coach came down to meet with me. There was a high school summer camp going on at the time, so Coach and I went to watch a couple prospective recruits.

Since we were on my turf, I said I would drive. As we went into Bowling Green, I saw a funeral procession and immediately pulled over and stopped. Coach was confused by this especially when every other car on the busy street did the same. People on the sidewalks stopped walking. A man removed his hat. Everything and everyone stood still while the motorcade passed.

After the final flagged car drove by, I re-entered the lane and continued driving to the gym. I explained to Coach that’s just what we do around here: respect and honor the person who has passed and his or her family. She assumed it was because it was a person of prominence in the community, and I told her I didn’t know who it was and that we did that for everybody.

How in the world have we gotten to the place of such disrespect, a place where we feel we can justify completely ignoring the lowest level of compassion?

In the last few months, I’ve seen horrible comments on posts written on the day of passing of Herman Cain, Justice Ginsberg, and now Rush Limbaugh. I have simply been aghast at the lack of empathy. I wasn’t raised to check the political affiliation of the deceased before deciding whether or not to stop my vehicle on the side of the road during the funeral procession.

Maybe being a widow makes me more aware. All I know is on the other side of the deceased is a family member or friend who loved that person and is hurting. I feel there is a window of grace and concern for others that should trump the political grandstanding and find the nastiness totally out of line.

I have plenty of opinions, and if you ask me, I will share them. (Sometimes I share without being asked just like I am today.) However, I really feel we can express ourselves with a little less callousness. There aren’t blue ribbons being handed out for social media burns and bullying behaviors, and even if there were, I’d be okay not getting one. Some games aren’t worth “winning,” you know?

I’m going to go watch an episode of Barney or something, so I can see some nice behaviors for a bit.

…until next time…