Who has rekindled my inner light during dark days? How might I express my gratitude?

Heroes for justice and helping others that could have gone the easy route and chose the hard road of helping. Suniti Solomon who is the first person to discover HIV in India and worked to stop the spread through education and treatment. She was willing to help those that her very conservative society initially and even now viewed as deserving of their dying, prostitutes, gay people, those considered morally wrong. Not only did she help them in terms of medical care, she tried to create places for them they could feel dignity as human beings. She helped to bring comfort and a quality of life to people who could have very easily been treated as complete pariahs by even the Indian government. Her clinic is a place people receive medication, mental health help and even a program to help match HIV positive people in romantic partnerships so they don’t have to be alone.

I think about Maximilian Kolbe who was throw into a concentration camp for his efforts to protect Jewish people during the Holocaust, who died giving up his life to protect the life of a man who called out for mercy. This man and about 12 others were singled out to be starved to death as retribution for a prisoner trying to escape, so Kolbe offered to take the man’s place, it took two weeks for them to die slowly and throughout that Kolbe was giving solace and administering care to the other prisoners.

I think about political prisoners who are being tortured right now who refused to be quiet about the injustices happening around them. I think about Gino Strada who has now saved so many lives by setting up world class cardiac hospitals in the most economically depressed and war torn countries, saying human beings have an intrinsic value and a four year old in Sudan has as much right to heart surgery as a white rich male in the Western world.

I think about anyone anywhere throughout all of history who stood against the oppressors and said, no you can’t do this, humans have value — life has value. I remind myself all the time of every single person like this and when I feel like giving up, I remind myself they didn’t give up and however small and tired I feel … I won’t give up. I express my gratitude for them by taking the lessons they were offering to all of us about what courage, compassion and human decency look like and trying to live them.