I was in the car today and Bobby Bones went to commercial and so I switched to NPR. I felt it. Before they even started the story, I could feel another tearful morning coming on. The next thing I know, they announced that Miep Gies died at 100 years old. 100 years old. She helped hide the van Pels, Mr. Pfeffer, and of course the Franks. Most notably, Anne. She always said that she wasn't a hero, to the contrary of what everyone believed. She said she only did what she thought was right--she said that she had imagined the sleepless nights and the regret that she would feel if she didn't help, and she knew she couldn't live that life.
It still is shocking to me to think that such an atrocity like the Holocost could happen in "modern" times. Genocide. Fucking genocide. What disgusts me even more is the idea that I could be guilty of being someone who lived during a genocide and did nothing to help prevent it. I mean, Darfur. I never really hopped on that whole thing when it was happening real big at UT, but that was mostly out of ignorance--I didn't really know much about it, I didn't know what was going on, I didn't know how big of a deal it was. Johnny was all about it, which led me to believe that it was definitely legit (I've found that I have the same view of Johnny as I do my brother David. I highly respect their points of views and I take almost everything they say as fact). I still don't know much about it. I need to educate myself more. Note to self: Reread Anne Frank's Diary. I'm pretty sure we had to read it in 8th grade when we did a whole unit on the Holocaust (remember Schindler's List in Mr. Hancock's room?), but for some reason, I don't really remember it.
What can I do to make my life meaningful for other people? For the world? Gies didn't feel like she was doing anything extraordinary--she just felt she was doing what was right. If I live my life as "right" as I possibly can, will that be enough?
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