This evening I attended an "Evening of Hope and Healing" in honor of Hser Nay Moo, the little girl that was murdered last week. Many of you are aware that she was a member of my stake and her body was found in an apartment about two blocks from my house. I got there a little late so I sat on the back row by the door and realized that I was sitting near Hser Nay Moo's family. I was a little surprised to see her family sitting on the back row at a program that was supposed to be about them but decided that they must have wanted to sit there. Shortly after I sat down I realized that the emcee of the program kept referring to Hser Nay as "that sweet girl that was taken from us" but never actually said her name. Then the International Children's Choir came and started singing. Midway through their second song Hser Nay Moo's family starting talking to each other, after about a minute a man on the row in front of me turned around and said to Hser Nay's family "I am trying to enjoy an evening of hope and healing, can't you people be quiet?!" Obviously this man didn't realize that he was just telling the family of the child he was there to support to be quiet.
After the program was over I was informed that the reason the family was speaking was because they were under the impression that they were going to perform music from Burma for the community. They were not invited to be part of the program so after the "official" program was over they decided to hold their own program to share their culture with the community. Unfortunately, less than half of the people who were there to support the family stayed to actually hear what they had to say.
People never cease to amaze me. Everyone was here to support the family but it appeared to me that they were supporting the idea of the loss of Hser Nay Moo but not there to actually support her family. I have to admit when I decided to attend the performance I was not expecting what I saw happening.
4 comments:
That is so crazy, but I could see how people would be like that. I bet if the sad issue hadn't been all over the news, many of the people would not have even gone to that. How sad!
Do you wonder if they even took the time to learn how to say her name? My heart goes out to the family. It's almost like they are getting hurt twice. I can't believe that they weren't even invited to be a part of the "original" program. That's just really sad.
That's terrible! It kind of seems like a waste of their time, especially since they were treated that way. I hope they weren't completely offended by the high-handed attitude of the "professional mourners".
You've said it all: People are interesting. I went back later to hear the music and a group of Burmese teenagers was rocking out Western (Western civilization not country music) style on stage with electric guitars and drums and people were dancing and laughing. Much better than earlier.
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