NATHANIEL NEWMAN

I was watching a show called “Taboo” today. It can be interesting, as it shows a side of life that you normally aren't exposed to. This time it was about “UGLY” and the variations of what we define it to be.

This particular episode included a family that was dealing with Treachers Collins Syndrome, which is a facial deformity that makes their 8 year old boy, Nathaniel, look unlike most kids. Luckily, he has a great family that is obviously caring, loving, understanding, smart, and honest about their feelings and his challenges. This poor child has been through more than 20 operations with more to come, just to combat the deficiencies from the disease and enable his eating and breathing to be easier.

Kids, of course, are tough on him. They tease and are very cruel in how they respond to him in public. It is no wonder he wanted to stay inside when he was younger. He gets to spend time with a psychologist who helps the little man understand the whys, whats and hows of the way he is viewed and his reaction to it. Because his family seems well adjusted, you get the idea that Nate will be fine and inspire many others to be a better person.

It's a shame he has to go through that. We all, at one time or another, have something others see as funny, weird, or easy to poke fun at. It's almost as if we MUST go through the torture to be who we are later in life. Unfortunately, not everyone can handle the beat-down. If you CAN, it can make you more compassionate, more humble, more likely to NOT treat others as a doormat. If you CAN'T, it will continue the downward spiral of low self-esteem and feed the feeling of despair. Or give you the ignorance that says it's OK to do what was done to YOU.

Makes you wonder why so many awful people do what they do. It can't just be they don't realize they are hurting anyone. It wasn't just the kids, but their parents as well. I think it is more they don't care until it touches them or someone close. How sad they never learned. Aren't we better than that????

This was just a reminder to me that, we humans have a long way to go until we are as good as we THINK we are.....