Last week I attended the Social Good Summit, a Mashable/UN Foundation conference. The speakers were unreal, ranging from Desmond Tutu to Christy Turlington to Ted Turner to (my favorite) Elie Wiesel. It was a transformative experience, spending four hours a day mesmerized by the power of the intersection of technology and humanity.
One night, after attending sessions all day, I noticed the attendant in the swanky restrooms where I was having dinner with a client had a strong accent. She was a beautiful woman and I was curious about her background, so I asked where she was from. She told me Ghana – so I was of course even more interested after hearing stories of African refugees carrying their children hundreds of miles to save their lives.
I’m always interested in a good human story, but this was especially poignant. She told me about bringing her two oldest children to the United States because her husband had been killed and she had no choice but to leave her beautiful two-year-old daughter in the care of her grandma. As her eyes filled with tears, so did mine and we mirrored each other’s pain. It was a perfect moment where our skin color, our cultures, our financial status, completely melted away and we were simply women.
I may only have to leave my children for a few days or so at a time, and my sacrifice of not being class mom may seem so trivial, but I’ve never believed in the relevance of pain. If it hurts, it hurts…there is no measurement, especially for a mom.
Of course, she also spoke with such pride of her older children’s educational accomplishments and her devout vision of what they will become because of their dedication and endurance. I think I know where they get their strength.
Anyways, the final outcome was that I ended up dumping all the cash I had in my wallet into her tip jar. It wasn’t a huge wad of cash, but it was worth it when she started crying, which set me off and we mutually erupted into giggles at our crying in a restaurant bathroom!
I don’t know if my little contribution will amount to much, but I do know that I’m so grateful to have attended this event so I can be reminded that the human story is more intriguing, more fascinating than watching yet another sports show or reading an article on the latest technologies.
Oh, and did I mention I bumped into Ted Turner (literally)? I was trying to find the restroom and wound up in the greenroom. I’ve read three biographies on him and he’s a bit of an idol for me, so it was a “big deal”.
Much love and sorry for taking so long to write,
Midori
Filed under: Personal
