Exclusion

February 5th

Sometimes I think and try to imagine what would my life look like if I was raised in a different way. If there were things that I would never have learned or ingrained in my mind from my family. If my personality was simpler and more common. I am sure my life would be easier. I might have been happier, but then every once in a while something happens that smacks me right across the face with a message — “no, you were raised the correct way and will be appreciative of it”. And I truly was and profoundly I am.

And something like that happened yesterday.

I was at mom’s for a dinner. She received a photo message from our cousins. Their son just turned six and had a party in the kindergarten. She showed me that photo — a birthday boy sitting in front of the cake with a bunch of kids around making faces at the camera. I looked at it and said “nice” — what else can you say to that? But my mom noticed something else in that photo. Something that I didn’t notice at a quick glance. A photographer taking a photo didn’t notice it, a kindergarten teacher didn’t notice it, and my cousins didn’t notice it as well. I mean — if they would notice that, they wouldn’t take or send out that photo. Right?

What my mom noticed was a girl, standing forlorn, well to the side of the happy, laughing group, about to eat a cake. She was in that photo, but wasn’t a part of that group — that was clear. In that photo, she is looking at those merry kids with jealousy and tearfulness — from the side. It looked like she was rejected and excluded from other kids. By whom? By those happy kids? By those six years old kids? Maybe it was just bad optics, maybe it was a case of a photo taken at the wrong moment — but if so, why didn’t someone notice and corrected that? And there is also something else that might be more disturbing — that rejected, excluded girl looks like an ethnic minority while all other cheerful kids are white. She is also much bigger than other kids and noticeably overweight. I guess it doesn’t take much for kids to be cruel to each other, and especially to someone different in looks or the way of speaking. The rejection and exclusion of that girl by the other kindergartners were palpable and painfully visible in that photo.

I really hope that I am wrong here and that it was just an unfortunate photo. But what is important here is the fact that nobody except for my mom noticed anything wrong with that scene — I guess everyone was simply too concentrating on that happy group to notice a girl standing to the side with clear discomfort. But my mom did notice that. And that is something that I do notice as well. There is a lot more going around us than just that happy moment right in front of us. And there is nothing wrong with being happy and celebrating and concentrating on that single fragment of our life that is just happening. But there are things happening on the fringe of our vision that are just as significant.

I learned to see that from my mom. Mostly from mom, but from some other family members as well. Being able to see the discomfort in others, being able to see the others, doesn’t make me happier. But I cannot imagine my life without that ability. That definitely makes my life and my experiences fuller. And I am extremely grateful for that.