"Heaps of People Sees But Nobody Knows"...

Are words from a very wise woman who was a part of my life as a child. It was her way of saying "always be nice and don't judge."

I thought of these words yesterday as I was skipping through channels trying to find CNN. (Time Warner has moved CNN to Channel 78 from Channel 10. Disappointing but that's for another time.) It was serendipity because I came across the Tyra Show. It just happened to be about "hazing," and it was one chilling story of extreme gang bullying after another. The show included stories starting in middle school through college. As one of the experts said, the scary thing about hazing is that girls do this "right of passage" as much as boys and it's in the spirit of "bonding." In other words, you're not supposed to feel humiliated for life, you're supposed to feel close to your tormentors. A huge confusing, damaging double message.

One of the male audience members said something to make me reflect on Nina's words from years past. He said that after having to be home schooled in eighth grade because kids picked on him for being gay, "I never give anyone a hard time because I don't know what they're going home to."

So true. "Heaps of people sees, but nobody knows." Although kids may look like they're functioning fine, you don't really know what's going on inside their heads, hearts or their homes.

Feel free to pass along Nina's words. She'd feel honored.