Shannon took the paper and started to read, as she did she could feel tears filling her eyes.
"Why don't you take a seat Mrs Gibbs?" said the Principal, "take your time."
The essay read;
My Inspiration: by Lewis James.
When we read the history books there are any number of inspirational people whose importance most people only realized after their deaths, far too late to say thank you to them and to learn even more from them and the problem with that is that not everyone likes the idea of history because they cannot always see how it is relevant to them and the way the world is today and how it relates to them.
We look to famous people for inspiration, which is definitely out there if we are prepared to read and study and translate what they did to our reality but the problem with the world today is that our society is quite lazy and often struggles to look beyond our own street or school yard or work place.
Also I do not think that a person needs to be famous to be inspirational. Sometimes the simplest of acts is more inspiring than one that is done on a huge scale and for an international audience.
Our idea of history is also wrong. History is not just about what happened 60 or 100 years ago. Once a minute has passed surely what happened in the seconds before is history, and just because it is recent history makes it no less important and no less inspirational than a man landing on the moon, or a person speaking up for equality, or a poor man becoming rich.
So therefore the history that inspires me the most is that which I see around me, that shocked me and moved me more than anything I have seen on tv, read in a book or learnt about in class.
My inspirational leader is my friend Tony DiNozzo.
When Tony joined our school I guess none of us really paid a great deal of attention to him, in some ways it felt good to have a new guy in the class to take the attention away from the rest of us. None of us reached out to him to help him because I guess we all felt that if we stood alongside him we would be subject to the bullying that he received. We had all been there ourselves and survived long enough for it to pass onto the next person and then it was easier to stand back and pretend to laugh or to join in rather than defend the next person. I look at this now and feel ashamed at my lack of action.
Tony took a lot of flack, and looking back perhaps more than we ever did. It was more hateful and more calculated than we had all endured and it was no real surprise when Tony could take it no more. Even then we failed to step up and protect him, he was punished, perhaps unfairly but still he came back. That takes guts and inspires me to carry on even if you hit rock bottom and feel totally alone. I would like to have that strength of character.
Tony endured even more and even though we don't know the full details or who did it to him for sure, we all suspect we know but again nobody is talking, not even Tony. At first I couldn't understand why but today something happened that made me consider this question again.
Today a bully got some of his own treatment. A boy who has terrorized all of us to one extent or another was suddenly alone and vulnerable and all those who had been hurt in the past saw that vulnerability and pounced on it. We have all dreamt about getting our revenge, teaching the guy a lesson he wouldn't forget, sometimes that thought that one day we would get our own back is what kept us going through the worst of times, but then I saw how Tony reacted. The kid, who had the most to seek revenge for, stepped in and faced the whole school and protected the bully. It took a moment to understand why he was doing it.
This time I chose to stand with him, he inspired me with his courage, with his actions and with his words.
He deliberately put himself between the bully and the crowd, he told them to stop, he didn't shout back at their jeers instead he explained why they should stop. At first I thought they would all turn on him, but I watched rather amazed as they listened and left.
He told them that no matter how many times they flushed the bullys' head down the toilet it would never take away the fact that he had done it to them. They were just spreading the misery rather than making it better.
He told the group that if they called the bully names and made jibes about him it wouldn't make things better, it would just mean that there were even more mean words out there in the world.
He told them that if they threw stuff at him that all it would mean is that there was one more weapon in the world for him to use back against them, one more missile to be thrown, one more bruise or broken bone. That to ridicule and taunt the bully would just perpetuate their own ridicule by him and other bullies.
People think those who have been bullied and beaten are weak and need protecting and need revenge taking on their behalf or even need to seek revenge themselves. We all think that Tony should tell us who did the crime so that we can let the full weight of the law take affect on them, but whilst that might deservedly punish them it doesn't mean it will necessarily stop them from doing it again. Maybe what Tony did will protect him more than putting a bully behind bars.
Tony showed us that in fact you can be stronger than everyone else put together, that you don't always need retribution and that kindness can defeat all of the evil and horrible things we do to each other. That if just one person stands up and says this is wrong, then others might listen and that if they in turn do the same thing some day then the world would be a better place.
I felt proud to stand with him, to share in just that one simple act of kindness and compassion. He inspired me to look beyond our simple and most basic urges to get our own back and look at the bigger picture. He inspired me to find compassion even in the worst of circumstances, to look for a redeeming feature.
I write this because this most recent history is the most relevant to me and how I live my life from this day on. Perhaps justice is about understanding and protection and not just about retribution. For all of these reasons I chose Tony DiNozzo, I'd follow him anywhere and if one day I become an author or a journalist I will be inspired to tell the world how my friend defeated evil with kindness.
Shannon took a few minutes to re-read the words on the page before her, beautifully written from the heart of a child, a child who her son had inspired.
Tears ran down her cheeks, "may I have a copy of this to show my husband?" she asked.
"Of course, please keep that copy, I wanted you to know how your son is choosing to handle his fears and his trauma, maybe we can all learn from him," smiled the Principal, "one day that young man will make a great deal of difference to a lot of peoples lives, more than he already has."
"Thank you," she sniffed trying to compose herself before she went out to where Tony was waiting, "he is a pretty special kid and has already made a huge difference to the lives of my husband and I."
