Cattāri Brahmavihārā

Our morning began with the sound of my ten year old vomiting in the bathroom. Food poisoning had awoken him with diarrhea and nausea. Soon we discovered that we had forgotten to take out his contract as well which lead us on a hunt for a clinic with the proper facilities to treat him and check for any corneal abrasions.

We relied on the kindness of the hondureños and we're not disappointed. A security guard called someone he knew who then drive us all over the island until we found the right clinic. Thankfully, my son's eye will be fine but without the kindness of others we would have been out of luck.

Funny thing was that our driver had just returned from the US where he had tried to make a living but decided that the risks were too high and the rewards too few for an illegal immigrant. Beyond that, the overall atmosphere of xenophobia and racism were lived experiences that he simply couldn't escape and resulted in his eventual return.

Migrants don't emigrate for fun and, truth be told, all humans and, certainly all Euro-Americans, are descendants of immigrants themselves. When did we forget that and how did it ever become fashionable to ignore the plight of others? When did it become okay to leave people to die in the desert?

Today, we were as good as immigrants in a foreign land but our money and my skin color made it possible for us to get a sick kid the treatment he needed. I can only imagine being in the US as an immigrant and being afraid to take my son to the ER for fear of being picked up by ICE officers who lay in wait at hospitals and schools.

Without kindness and charity there is no human society. May we do our best to cultivate kindness on our lives and support organizations and parties that put a premium on compassion and respect the sanctity of human life regardless of its race, creed or country of origin.