Day 21,737

Good morning! It is 22 March 2023, and it might be time for me to change my post greeting.

Good morning, Evelyn. Today is your Day 6. I’m your grampa.

You are the single brightest light in our lives today, and that is an undeniable fact.

I would love to tell you that you have arrived in a world where everything is good, and people are treating everyone the way they themselves want to be treated, but that’s not always the case. Someday you’ll start talking and you’ll learn new words, and I hope one day you can appreciate the word, “empathy”.

As you grow up, you’ll find out about dictionaries, where we have great big collections of words, their definitions, and how they are pronounced. Empathy is an important word to me, and it is defined as the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person or animal, or even a fictional character in a book. You will see it around you. When you are happy, you will notice others feeling happy, too. When you are sad, you can look into my eyes, the eyes of your mom and dad, the eyes of your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, and you will see that we all feel your pain and want you to feel better.

Someone once wrote that evil is the absence of empathy. People can only hurt other people when they stop trying to understand the feelings of others. If people tell you that your feelings don’t matter, that’s not a good thing. Your feelings matter. My feelings matter. Even our pets have feelings, and you can see it in their eyes when they are happy or sad… although with the dogs, you don’t have to look in their eyes, the tail gives it away.

We all love you, and we want you to know you are loved. You matter, your dreams matter, your feelings matter.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.