SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

i did it for LOVE. (me!) sandra, tvgp. WriteousMom.. #juryduty

I joke with people..   "yes, well people used to have children to help them out on the farm..  today we have children so they can help us with technology.."

and is there some truth?  I mean, that's certainly what ive heard

that couples literally had children, back in the day, because they needed help running/operating their farms, and that is what the children would do as they became able and old enough..

whole families contributing, working, cooperating, collaborating..

but that's not why I had children.  I don't have a farm.

and at the time I had my children:  1997, 1999    -I did not even know, that today, 2017 we would even have cell phones that they could so easily understand and help me figure out..

I didn't have them so they could help me..

I heard..   as a juror, I learned that some people had children so that there would be someone around to financially support them in their old age..

and that..     that took me quite by surprise

1.  because, well it has three very, very optimistic/entitlement/guarantee~sentiments doesn't it:
                  a.  we WILL ourselves have long lives (parents)
                  b. our CHILDREN WILL also have long lives
                  c.   our children WILL be financially successful enough to support not only themselves, and their families, but us too.


from my life experience, and view and perspective..     such optimism and entitlement and sense of guarantee.. not only did it not bloom in me; there is no seed

the seed in me is..    MAYBE; not WILL

maybe you will live a long life.  maybe you won't.
maybe you will have children.  maybe you wont.
maybe your children will live long lives.  maybe your children won't.

but, in the court case I sat on..   young parents were suing for money that their ..

wait.   -was it the parents?   maybe it was the attorneys/lawyers,

50/80...    

but, I do know this:   the financial part of the law suit was based on

how much money the young children   -who died in a car accident in their early teens

              -how much money the children would have been able to, in theory, provide their parents in their senior years, had they not died in the car accident.

         again, in order to formulate, this income is based on:  1. the young parents for sure living into their own senior years   2.  the children living into their adult years   3.  the children living into their adult years AND being financially stable, having both jobs and relationships that lead to them financially supporting themselves, their families, their elderly parents..

but as the children did die in a car accident..

the math was based on their grades in school, character development,  -and a financial forecast was made as to what they would naturally then earn in their 30's, 40's, 50's..  

and, trust me, it only got better..   no ups and downs or financial setbacks of any kind or debt or bankruptcies or failed businesses or costly divorces were factored in their financial forecast..  or recessions, like we saw in 2008, or unemployment or illness or hospital stays

according to what I heard, they were wonderful children, obviously on a direct and unwavering path to financial success.

so, like, this is one of the reasons I have so much trouble with math..   know what I mean?

                 didn't you forget to factor in....

isn't the fact we are in court in the first place evidence that you can't always predict...

and i'll tell you what..    it COULD be exactly true:  I have no problem, had no problem, could easily see they were good kids..  and it may very well be, they were on a direct path to nothing but financial success..   wealth, prosperity, generosity, philanthropy

but I didn't operate from a place of KNOWING; seeing this as a guarantee.   -hoping maybe..  but not KNOWING.

 and a devastating trauma, to lose your child in a car accident   -it hurts even more to me now.. a mother of two young adult children, than it did then, when I was still too young to have had any..

my level of empathy would be greater today as a juror as to the loss..

of life.    but I am no different today in my position about how absurd it seem to me, how over optimistic in entitlement and guarantee  - to financially forecast the next 30 years..    and provide the parents with the money they potentially lost out on in their senior years.

so,

many years have passed since I was a juror on this case..  I was 21?

but society on the whole, still seems ...   culturally speaking...  to live with this core belief

that all humans born are entitled    ~guaranteed!~    to live 90 years at least, and anything shy of that is some form of breach of contract

   -there is no such contract.


 if you examine the world at large..  humanity across the globe...  and time.
contemplate miscarriages, abortions, still births, crib death, cancers, accidents of every sort, provoked, planned and random acts of violence, illness, suicide, homicide, mass shootings, earthquakes, tsunamis, overdoses, fires, drownings, floods, falls, crashes, gangs, drugs.. plagues, epidemics, pandemics, civil and uncivil wars..

it is my perspective and point of view and belief..

no such entitlement ever has or ever will exist.

being born at all..  a gift.      every day...   a gift.

and the years you live after age 5 or 10 or 20 or 30.. etc.     -no contract to breach



and whether you live one day, or 90+ years..

ultimately

it's all temporary and quite fleeting..

I did not have my children so they could help me on the farm.
I did not have my children so they could help me with technology.
I did not have my children so they could support me in old age.
I did not have my children because I accidentally got pregnant.
I did not have my children to  -trap, or try and keep a man.
I did not have my children because it was socially, or religiously or culturally mandated.

I had my children, because I believe life, human life

is a miraculous gift and love

is very much worth living for.

I did it for the experience of love; and can testify

it is even more wonderful than I ever could have imagined.



   -God, so loved the world...

so LOVED the world..

 -if you are a person of faith, who believes in God..

you know immediately, that God did not create humans to intellectually,  financially or emotionally or technologically support him

what can a human born on earth do for the creator? that the creator cannot obviously do himself...

this narrows it down...


and would you like me to speak again,  -some more about LOVE

how it is omnipresent..  infinite.  never runs out...  ever!
how it is not a limited resource we have to fight over...

how the mom in that country can love her child so deeply, so completely, so utterly

but that huge amount of love experienced/shared by that mom does not mean the mom on the other side of the world, now has less..

how it expands and grows..

how it is we even know  -we love someone; the internal experience, understood, known, interpreted

IN US

and, how God IS Love..          ~inside us.

and all around us...           everywhere.   unlimited, infinite resource

that unlike any other resource..    expands with use.    there is not one pile of love, that gets spread thin, you see

or runs out.   or must be rationed.

there is always plenty and plenty more

where love comes from...



for those who don't believe in God..

I would not waste a second arguing, or trying to convince, or persuade

because LOVE is a spiritual LAW that applies to all of humanity; not a specific faith or lack of faith system.    .it is like the sky

do you love anyone?   isn't it fantastic!

that is plenty.

and there is plenty more..

posted by SHE @ 9:54 AM