A lot has happened since last July when I wrote about walking Luke and being confronted by a woman in her car.  A woman angry because I dared not to pick up the Luke’s stool in the bushes where he had so cleverly deposited it.   I still remember how entitled and angry the woman was that I had run out of bags to clean it up. Now, I think how luck it was that I was the one walking him not my best friend.

Would the police have been called because he isn’t white?  Sounds insane right, but that is the reality of the world we are living in at the moment.  Police are called in for matters that could be solved with civility or just ignored.  So many people are calling the police when no laws have been broken and no one is endangered.

We suspect our neighbors because they have become other.  There is a real danger in labeling people in our communities as other. It allows some of us to come entrenched in the idea that change is not a constant, but a danger.

The last year of my own life has cemented my belief that change is the only constant and that we must embrace change for ourselves and our communities.  If we don’t embrace it, we allow others to make those decisions for us.  We allow them to steer our communities away from the ideals which we belief shape us towards the ones that have led to the darkest moments in our history.

It has been too long since I sat down, was honest and just wrote. The last year has been filled with so much fear and change that I don’t know how to express myself. Fear of being judged or ostracized for my opinions has led me to be silent.  Silence is the real killer.