I am on a purposeful path. I believe we
all are.
I was placed on this path as a child, searching
for a God I knew must exist.
I am one of the lucky ones; a passion and
purpose burned into my soul before a vocabulary had grown enough in my mind to
define it.
It has been there for as long as I can remember.
I did not behave like a normal child or a normal
teenager. I needed to launch, as quickly as possible, into a world that
needed thousands, no, millions of us to respond. And respond we did.
A Foster Home in Rural Lesotho
The destructive power of AIDS will end and in
the process prove to the world that humanity has an unlimited capacity for good
should we find our moral compass and learn to work together with benevolence
and respect for one another.
You under-estimated the power of the Spirit that
laid this purpose deep within my soul. In your mind, the tallest poppy in
the group needed to go, be pruned to the point, not of equalization which is
damaging in an of itself, but to the point of destruction. All in order
for you to create your own path, become the tallest poppy and bask in the light
of your own glory.
Thankfully, my goal was never to become a 'tall
poppy". My goal was to join the ranks of thousands who have fought
and continue to fight for the end of AIDS. Perhaps you have lost sight of
this goal.
I managed your betrayal with every ounce of
dignity and respect I could gather; respect for the power of evil, dignity that
would protect me from defaulting to behaviours that would see me lash out in
rage, and dignity that needed to be preserved for those whose lives would be
most gravely affected should I have chosen not to possess unfathomable
restraint.
Your pride, your blind ambition set you on a
path that put the lives we promised to protect at risk. Only an utter
lack of wisdom could have led you down this path. But you have not
changed my path or altered my course. In fact, you have re-defined it,
reshaped it into something that is bigger than I had imagined. You have
not distracted me from the focus, the goal, the end game. You have made
my focus more precise. You have clarified my ambition.
And so, I give you my gratitude, for sharing the
same path, for all that was accomplished in the sharing. I give you my
good will and a blessing of sorts because I will not underestimate you and the
courage I know you possess, the wisdom you have lost but only briefly, and the
dignity you give to others, the most vulnerable, those we fight for.
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The
Tall Poppy Syndrome
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