The Littlest Strawberry

Yesterday was Halloween as most of us know. It was a time when, as a child, I viewed it as great fun anticipating all the "loot" I would collect when calories did not matter. It gave me the opportunity to dress up as the favorite characters of my childhood from Superman to my cowboy hero The Lone Ranger. I could go to familiar homes and greet neighbors I knew so well with whom I ate lunches and dinners sometimes more than I had in my own only-child home. It was a different time.

We, most of us, knew each other from those in the homes at the top of the street to those in the homes at the bottom. I played with and knew everyone and everyone knew everyone else too. No one feared going out even at night alone. It was a different time.

In our time it has become apparent, at least to me, that few of us know each other who live sometimes across the street. In fact, most on my street I do not know at all. Homes have been constructed at the very top of the street but those homes may as well have been constructed in the next town where I would not know anyone at all. It is a different time.

I am sad that this is so as this nation seems to have contracted into respective tribal camps. There used to be a sense of us instead of a sense of them. It is, indeed, sadly, a different time.

And this brings me to my final thought. The doorbell rang yet again on Halloween and this time I was visited by the most adorable two year old little girl with big dark soulful eyes. When I asked what she was dressed as she said in a tiny voice "A strawberry." A strawberry? I asked surprised and examined her costume. Yes, indeed, she was the cutest little strawberry I have ever seen. I asked her mother where she lives and she said she lived close to my house across the street. I lamented that fact of how sad it was that on the same street where I used to know everyone I know so few today. Her lovely mother, who was just as nice as the littlest strawberry she had in tow, agreed. 

Yes, it is a different time and lamentably so. Maybe we all must work a little harder to get to know one another even if our tribal allegiances are different. When we know one another the impetus to see each other as different transcends a bridge to our common humanity. We are after all simply human and, yes, we are all in this together. The utterly adorable littlest strawberry brought these very big thoughts to my mind.

I hope when she grows up our worlds will not be so different from one another’s. I hope she will be able to see the common humanity that will keep us together to tolerate and transcend the smaller differences that keep us a world apart!


Why we must elect Democrats and even reach out to Republicans who are reachable to join our side to prevent those who would keep us separate, divided and apart!