Choosing LOVE for Las Vegas

2 OCTOBER 2017 / GUY GIARD HUMANITARIAN

Love or Hate?

As I woke up this morning it felt like any other day. Fall is coming, daylight is getting shorter. It was still night but my alarm clock told me otherwise. The call to work and a good cup of coffee gave me the motivation to finally get out of orpheus’ reach.

Slumbering to the kitchen I turned on the radio. Then it hit me. I felt the air punch out of my stomach. I couldn’t breathe. “Fifty dead from a shooting”. I must have misheard. “Las Vegas, festival, country music” words fell like crumbs from my four day old toast. A tremor started to travel across my body. “Fifty. Fifty. Fifty”. It was real.

Devastated

I felt devastated! Still do. A bottomless hole in my heart. Should I feel angry? Sad? Wanting to hit a wall or stomp my feet? I feel to accuse and scream at society and the shooter! I FEEL A RAGE! And then I think of the mothers, fathers and their children. The unimaginable loss. The pain. The tears.

How should I react? How do you react? With your head? With your heart?

I can’t eat or drink any coffee. It’s not getting down. I stare out the window as the radio announcers keeps filling in the details. “Lone gunman, hotel room 32nd floor” and then videos of the shooting. The terrifying “tak-a-tak-a-tak-a-tak” of a machine gun. I can’t bare it. I turn it off. I cry.

Agony and helplessness.

I stand in silence, letting all the feelings wash over me. Yes, I hurt, but the families out there must be in agony. “What can I do to help them?” Can my frustration at the violence, my anger towards a faceless murderer bring them any solace? Can my hate bring any healing to them or the world? No.

As much as it pains me more hate and more violence will not heal any scars.

“Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness. We must meet the forces of hate with the power of love.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Choose Love

As a Humanitarian I have faced many horrors. I can still see the deformed newborns filled with tubes and kept alive only with pumping machines. I still hear the screaming lepers with open soars as doctor treats their wounds without anesthesia. I hold their hands, sing songs and kneel down and pray.

This is what I choose today for all the victims of this morning’s senseless horror. Love is the only answer to the endless violence we keep witnessing. I know that is is not easy. I understand that it may take days or even weeks to be able to open your heart. But I believe that this is the only way of healing ourselves and Humanity.

“Love is the only answer to the endless violence we keep witnessing”.

Wherever you are on this beautiful planet, remember that I am always here for you. And if you can’t find it in your heart, yet, to give back love in face of such violence, then just ask me! I will be the love for you that you are wanting to give to the world!

I love you all xxxxxx

Guy Giard

See the original post at: https://citizenclown.wordpress.com/2017/10/02/choosing-love-for-las-vegas/