To judge or not to judge

I previously posted "Health Care.....is it a right or a privilege?" and "How the government saved my family" on a couple of other open blogs, to see if I could drum up some interest in my blog. In the Health Care piece, I wondered if a cousin of mine had health care coverage. A few people accused her of not contributing to society; one even suggested that I should pay for her health care. In the government piece, someone questioned my father's decisions, which I took as an attack on my family. My response to him was "Do not base your judgements of my family based on what you would have done. We are not all alike."

It seems to me that people are too eager to judge other people, based on how they would handle a situation. But people are not all alike. They do not start at the same point in life. They do not all have the same life skills. And sometimes......sometime people just do stupid things that they normally would not do. Trust me, I know.

Four years ago my 82-year old mom, 2 sisters, niece, 10-month old great-nephew and I visited my sister and her family in Florida. They lived on 12 acres, amongst orange groves and palmetto trees. There were also alligators, flying bats, and bobcats. And snakes. Now, we live in the city, so we don't get close to wild animals unless we're in the woods. So for the first few days, we were always on the look-out. Always on guard. After we realized these critters weren't going to bother us, we relaxed. One hot afternoon we walked down the road to a neighbor's house to swim in their pool. On the way back to my sister's, as we casually strolled along the gravel path, we heard a noise in the bushes. Then a loud rustle of branches and the sound of feet running towards us. We all screamed, turned and ran in the other direction. My 82-year-old mother, sisters, niece, nephews, and me. We all ran.....and left my 10-month old great-nephew sitting alone in his stroller.

Fortunately, the noise was a dog inside a fenced yard. But what if it hadn't been?

I know without a doubt that all of us would have given our lives for that little boy. This was not our normal reaction. But for some reason, at that particular moment, our instincts told us to run when we heard the noise. We didn't run far, and would have had enough time to grab the stroller before a wild animal appeared.....but still......we all ran.

Let's try not to second guess some one's decisions in life unless we've had a chance to walk in their shoes.