Do You or I Really Matter?

The Beautiful Spouse and I traveled through Peoria, IL recently.  I like Peoria.  I do some business there and I have always found the trip there to be nice.  I especially love the point on I-74 West where you round the curve, top a hill and you are looking at the Peoria skyline (such as it is).

I have a favorite hotel when I stay there.  It's called The Mark Twain Hotel and it is wonderful.  The rooms are old with just a touch of modern and industrial.  The service is wonderful, the rates are good and it places you smack in the middle of the downtown area. 

The hotel boasts a fabulous restaurant called Two25.  The pizza is absolutely incredible.  It's a paper thin crisp crust and all of the ingredients are fresh and delicious. 

I had a bit of businesss to do while there but we also found time for some shopping and I took my Hunny Bunny on a little tour of the schools I do business with.  We found a great little outdoor shopping area called The Shoppes at Grand Prairie.  It's quaint without being too cutesy.  The Spouse enjoyed the shops (or shoppes) and we both think someone should develop something like this in our town. 

I think the most suprising thing about this little shopping area was the Peoria Holocaust Memorial that is smack in the middle of it.  

The Memorial Marker that explains the project. It's very moving to think that the 6 million Jews and 5 million other "enemies" of Hitler are memorialized here. The Spouse and I both got a bit teary-eyed.

There are five of these triangular shaped glass cases that represent the 5 million "enemies" who were not Jewish but were murdered because of Hitler's hatred.

There are two rows of these glass cases.  Each case is in the form of the Star of David.  They contain 6,000,000 buttons.  Each button represents one Jew who died because of Hitler's evil.

Each button is different from the other, just as each of us is different from the other. 

Take a look at those pictures again.  Take a close look at the buttons.  Those are individual lives destroyed by the evil intentions and actions of one man.  One man did this to 11,000,000 people.  One man did this and much more to an entire civilized world.

The next time you begin to doubt whether you matter or whether you can make a difference in anything, go back and look at this. 

One man did this. 

You, as one person, are capable of doing so much good.  What if five of us banded together for a cause that we felt united in?  If one man can do this much evil, how much good could one man do?  Two? Three? 

You matter.  What you do has repercussions.  For good or for evil. 

What will you do?