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Since we were at the bakery, it was only fitting that the bitch get a proverbial pie in the face.
Before she was even able to punctuate that sentence, I turned to her with the look any person who is a parent — heck, anyone who is human — would have. Then I let her have it.
Renee Antonelli Valente
“This boy is a happy, loving, healthy child. He looks at the world with purity and wonder. He sees the good in all things, and is simply unable to understand the bad. To him, it does not even exist.”
She looked down, in humility. But she needed to look inward — people tend to forget that they can see with their hearts as well as their eyes — so I continued.
“This child knows only how to love purely, from the heart. Without prejudice or misconception. Without judgment or selfishness.
“And even you he will see as beautiful, with all the hatred that you spew, because he has been blessed with the gift of ignorance to those evils, and he forever will walk with joy in his heart and a smile on his face”
She looked up at me.
“Who really are the poor bastards here?” I asked her. “Who really has the handicap? Him… Or us?”
She had nothing to say. But that happens when guilt has shoved your own foot down your throat.
All I wanted was my morning coffee. But that’s my dumb luck. I always seem to run into the bullies, or the selfish. Then comes the battle of what’s right versus what’s correct.
Unloading on a stranger at the bakery may not have been the “politically correct” move. Some might say I should mind my own business, that she’s entitled to her opinion. Maybe it would have been easier to simply ignore her ignorance. Then everyone gets their morning roll with butter and a coffee and goes about their day.
But would that have been the RIGHT thing to do?
If we care about what is right, then we know we need more, not fewer, examples of selflessness and generosity and tolerance. More of us need to feed stray kittens or help a stranger reach something on the top shelf — or defend a child’s dignity at the bakery.
More of us should look prejudice, racism, sexism and intolerance dead in the eye and say: “Nope, not here. Not now. Not ever.”
I did what I thought was right, and you know what? I’d do it again.
“A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity,” the Buddha says.
Imagine how many ills could be cured by renewing that simple prescription.
Who knows? Just maybe we could all be as fortunate as that boy in the bakery.
She moved to Wayne, but this Union (City) Hiller never left her city roots. Renee Antonelli Valente is a true ‘tweener’, book-ended by a feisty mom in her 70s and her own inquisitive grade-schoolers. Still, she finds time to rock out — and put people in their respective places.
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