Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Afterwards 2 Adela's Brother Robert

I'm almost 73 now and more appreciative than ever of all the people in my life who have given me a reason to be hopeful. I mentioned several of these in the afterwards to my book Vision Quest. In the afterwards I explained that our friend Adela raised money for her brother Robert who lives in Poland. He on his own time drives to the boarder with Ukraine to deliver essential medical and survival supplies to those suffering from the Russian invasion and returns with refuges who he finds homes for in Poland. Poland and many of the other free Eastern European countries have been quite welcoming of the Ukrainian refugees. Quite a contrast to those close-minded Americans who want to build walls to keep refugees out forgetting that it was refugees who built this country.

I got to meet Robert last night. We took him and Adela to hear Nicole sing at Basecamp Pizza. I was even more impressed to hear in his own words, his story and the stories of the friends he had made in the Ukraine. Including the story of Katrina who Robert and his wife helped flee along with her child from the vicious Russian invasion. Robert an I.T. manager with a young child of his own and his wife provided a home for Katrina whose husband was now serving in the Ukranian army. Katrina has now returned to Ukraine and is now helping with support efforts in that country. We often take stories of such heroes for granted, but when you actually meet and hear these stories firsthand, it is impossible to ignore them. These people have sacrificed their lives of normalcy to defend us all from the ambitions of a ruthless dictator. I have a much better appreciation now of the mindset and heroism of the people who experienced similar events in the run up to the Second World War. Hopefully, we have all learned from that History and won't have to repeat it. For the sake of our children, grandchildren and all our sakes, stay hopeful and kind.

 I told Robert that eventually we Americans would do the right thing and was reminded of the Churchill quote, "Americans eventually do the right thing, but only after they've tried everything else." Things have not changed much since that quote. Congress finally passed a military appropriations bill to fund Ukraine, but only after they spent months trying to derail the bill to suit their own self-serving political purposes.