To all of my friends who, after sharing their heartfelt thoughts and prayers about yesterday's senseless tragedy, are going to soldier on by loving and, more importantly, serving to make others’ lives better, I say THANK YOU! Please continue to share with me your posts about hope, humanity and helping your fellow man. I enjoy reading them, and I use them as fuel to go out and live a more purposeful life.
As I was going into surgery yesterday, one of my nurses asked me why I thought things like yesterday’s shooting happened, especially to little children. I told her that I didn’t know. It’s not an easy question, and it certainly doesn’t have an easy answer. What I do know is that, regardless of your political, social or religious affiliations, these instances of tragedy can and should remind us that evil really does exist. But it should also shout out to us loud and clear the profound words of a British Parliamentary leader and supporter of the American Revolution, Edmund Burke, when he said “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
So, instead of using yesterday’s tragedy as a platform to spew political and social opinion about budget cuts to mental health programs or whether gun control is necessary, opinions which lately seem to be doing nothing more than polarizing our country into a bunch of loud-mouthed zealots, why don’t we all get off our butts and actually contribute. I don’t mean talk about it until the news moves on to the next “big even,” I mean get out and serve. Get involved. Start with your family, and then when their taken care of, find someone else who needs help. Don’t just pray or think about them in a compassionate way; actually lift a hand to better their life. Don’t just sit in front of your computer posting on Facebook about how you wish things like this wouldn’t happen, and then move right along to posting about all of names you thought about naming your cat, or telling me and your 1,499 other Facebook “friends” what fancy restaurant you got drunk at last night. I mean do something really meaningful.
Mr. Wiggins is the president of Assure Estate Planning. He has over a decade of experience in special needs estate planning, guardianship and asset protection. Having a son with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and another with Sensory Integration Dysfunction, Michael knows very well the challenges (and rewards) that having a special needs child can bring. A frequent lecturer and guest speaker,and an active member in the autism and broader special needs community, Michael has committed himself both in and out of Assure Estate Planning to helping special needs families cope with the myriad of legal, financial and institutional challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. Michael is a frequent presenter of parent training workshops for Washington Autism Alliance & Advocacy throughout Washington state.