anthro raccoon cheese grater

Maybe you and I do deserve to suffer for our wrongdoing. If that’s so, then it means that when things get painful, when things get difficult, we don’t have the luxury of quitting. We don’t get to end our lives to escape what we did. Whatever form the pain takes, we bear it, we endure it, we welcome it, all while we try to make this world a place where people like us, like how we used to be, have no place, and the people who would be hurt can instead live in peace. The next time you encounter an obstacle you cannot overcome, when you just want to curl up into a ball and quit on the world, remind yourself that you don’t deserve the peace of surrender. You have to keep working, to keep fighting, to keep suffering, until the day when you’ve fully repented.

“I’m going to avenge everyone you killed and restore the honor of my school! Mine, not yours!”“I discarded those pieces of trash, along with such foolish notions like honor. All that matters is strength!”

The school year was coming to an end and I was busying myself with spring sports. I was doing track and field, distance events like the 1,500-meter run. I also tried my hand at pole vaulting, which did not go well. I had to quit vaulting before I really hurt myself. One particularly grueling Friday at practice, I noticed Mrs. B. in the bleachers watching. Faculty often wandered out to watch teams practice or play, but Mrs. B was rarely among them. She lingered when the practice was over, so I went over to say hi. She seemed genuinely happy to see me, even though she had been quite aloof in class or in the hallway.