Reverting to our natural compassion

And the wheels keep turning. The other day, I had the beautiful opportunity of observing a 2-year-old playing in the sand at a playground. The child appeared to be in a beautiful state of contentment and peacefulness that mesmerized me. Several minutes later, two other children arrived, and I got the sense they did not know one another. They immediately began playing with each other, so relaxed, happy and comfortable with each other, just a beautiful sight. It was a beautiful portrayal of kindness, caring, ease and cooperation among these three children.

Then I started to think about the decline of this beautiful, natural, instinctual behavior of young individuals, in general, as we age. We seem to allow ourselves to become hardened, unkind, uncaring, uncompassionate and untrusting. What a sad deterioration in humanistic beautiful behaviors.

I suggest we look at this and make a conscious effort to increase our awareness that, perhaps, each one of us has allowed this to occur to some degree, and we should attempt to revert to kindness, caring, respect, compassion and times gone by, within ourselves.

Paul Feinberg,

South Setauket

Silent heroes are among us all

No matter where you walk, just ahead of you or maybe behind you or to your left or right walk undocumented heroes. Some have spent years in service to our nation in our armed forces during previous wars. I recently learned that a good friend’s father, now older than 100, not only fought in World War II but was part of the Normandy invasion. To me, a marching band should stand outside his home every day, waiting for him to come out so it could play reveille for him. Most of these heroes don’t give us a hint of their sacrifice for our well-being. We recognize their sacrifice twice each year, on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Are two days really enough? I say they should be honored each and every day, just as our first responders need to be recognized. To me, every Monday should be a day of celebration of the sacrifice these heroes have made for all of us.

Phil Grella,

Rockville Centre