The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

“Mama, I am sorry to disturb you, but I am very confused. After all of this pain and heartache, how are you now able to forgive? You seem so at peace with yourself and your life. How are you so able to move on?” She gave me an easy half smile and took another sip from her mug. “Because Mr. Mandela asked us to.”

The common bond of humanity and decency that we share is stronger than any conflict, any adversity, any challenge. Fighting for your convictions is important. But finding peace is paramount. Knowing when to fight and when to seek peace is wisdom.

I listened in amazement and horror as, through trembling lips, she talked about the hopelessness the people felt during this time and the pain of knowing that this level of segregation, this level of poverty, this level of depression was being imposed on a people for things they were in no way responsible for, or should be ashamed of.

Where was God when people didn’t make enough money to feed their families? Where was God when kids were selling rocks at twelve years old, and their parents encouraged it because the kids were the main breadwinners in the home? Where was God when a young boy came home from a school that was as uninterested in him as he was in it? Where was God when

Colored was a concept created during the apartheid era to further isolate the races—coloreds received more privileges than blacks did. Not many more, but enough to seed antagonism between the two groups. The lighter your skin was in apartheid South Africa, the better off you were.

Life’s impermanence, I realized, is what makes every single day so precious. It’s what shapes our time here. It’s what makes it so important that not a single moment be wasted.

In the Bronx, the idea of life’s impermanence underlined everything for kids my age—it drove some of us to a paralyzing apathy, stopped us from even thinking too far into the future.

The expectations that others place on us help us form our expectations of ourselves.

The irony of the situation forced me to smile, featuring my newly cracked tooth. Years earlier, I had run through these same woods with all of my might, looking for safety, trying to get away from campus. Tonight, I ran through the same woods looking for safety, but in the other direction.