When I was a kid, I was thinking of how can I change the world? How can I help other people? Can I really write? Can my ideas change the universe in another way around?
But I'm not holding the earth itself, I'm just a kid. With a simple dream, and that dream is impossible. How can I change the world? How can a mere child make a difference for the better?
"Summer?" I stand up as my teacher just called my name.
"Yes ma'am?"
"How can you, in your own way can make a difference in the world?" I was speechless for a moment. I blinked for how many times.
"I'm sorry ma'am, but I'm asking myself for years." She look at me, as if I was hopeless. She just sighed and told me to seat. I sat and look at the trees and birds, how they fly and sing along with the wind. How can a teacher ask her first year highschool student on how to make a difference and can't even answer it on her own?
Asking for difference is not easy. Making a difference is not. But doing nothing is another conscience.
But as I walk from school, I saw an old woman that I always see there below a manggo tree, feeding some abandoned dogs and cats. She always would, and she would also pick some trash around the tree and give it a proper segregation. A nice citizen of our subdivision.
But I can't help to walk towards her, and ask her.
"Hello po!" I greeted her and smiled. She smiled while carressing a dog on her lap.
"Hello there!" She greeted back. She offered me a seat but I refuse, and insisted to just stand there because it's fine.
"I always saw you here po,
so nice of you to think about others, and I want to ask you something. But please don't get offend." She nodded. I smiled and tighten my grip on my backpack's strap.
"I want to ask you, if you think you're helping the world. I mean there's a lot of garbage and abandoned animals in the world, why bother to take care of them, you know you're old and you should be there inside the house being comfortable--" she cut me out. Probably got offended.
"This is what I love. And to answer your question, I'm not really trying to be a hero. I'm just a human, who should make a difference. You know what iha, you should make too, learn to make a difference." I was taken a back for a moment. It's a long span of silence. But she broke it with a laugh.
"You're still confuse how to make a difference huh? Making a difference in the world is not about being a hero and saving a thousands of people. It's about helping in your own little way." She said that with assurance, and a smile that never faded away to her face. And that day...
She did make a big difference in me. And as I watch the sky, I can see how the ozone layer was destroyed. I realize that it's the difference we never made.
