My Cousin Matthew

Recently I was browsing Facebook, and came across a post from my grandma. In typical grandmother fashion, she used the status box to brag about one of her grandchildren, Matthew (a grandchild on my side of the family, so he’s my cousin). Normally I just glance at what she writes and continue scrolling through the newsfeed, but this post caught my eye. This time, something incredibly special had been done that was actually worth bragging about.

Matthew is twelve years old and has just begun middle school. As everyone knows, middle school is awful. It’s part of everybody’s awkward stage and during that time you do a lot of soul searching to figure yourself out and make sure you’re friends with the right kind of people. I’m truly in awe of my cousin; what he did demonstrated to all that he knows what’s right and he’s going to stand by it, which is a brave act at any age. I learned from it, and I’m sure everyone can learn from it.

While in school, Matthew saw two boys teasing an Autistic boy. He went up to the boys and told them what they were doing was bullying and they needed to stop. One of the boys pushed Matthew into a wall, which aggravated a concussion he was recovering from. Matthew isn’t able to play football for the rest of the season, but at least the bullies got suspended. When Matthew told the boy he defended how bad he felt about the other boys bullying him, the boy replied, “It’s ok, Matthew. I’m used to it.”

The boy can say it’s ok as much as he wants, but it will never be ok. Even at the age of twelve, Matthew recognizes this. Why can’t everyone recognize this? Often times I read the news and am absolutely disgusted by horrible cases of bullying. People need to learn that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. Regardless of circumstances, a person has thoughts and feelings. I have even heard about hateful actions within my dorm, Milton Daniel, which is a residence hall for honors students (Can we try to be better leaders, please?). It’s about time people started treating EVERYONE with respect, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic standing, or any other reason that may make someone slightly different. After all, humans share 99.9% of our DNA; that means we are only about 0.01% different from any other person, at most. Luke 6:31 says “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” It doesn’t add any exceptions.