Richard Moore stood before us with dark glasses and a sturdy stance, well acquainted with the talk he was giving us and the ninth grade (eighth grade) today. He’d lost his eyesight as a ten year old in his primary school yard, the victim of a vicious rubber bullet the size of a coke can and the shape of a missile, fired for unintentionally running in the direction of a checkpoint.
He shares his story, over and over, in the hope that it helps others respond to the inevitable challenges brought by life, and to speak a language of forgiveness and peace.
Last night, when students confessed there were questions they were nervous to ask because they thought they might be rude and inappropriate, and I had said that this was their bridge, their neutrality and smiling American ignorance, allowing people to speak about things they ordinarily aren’t going to talk about despite a clear need to air them. The younger kids showed what that looked like in questions Richard Moore fielded, asking wonderfully inappropriate and direct queries about his blindness and the incident itself: What’s it like being blind? What’s it like to get shot in the face?
Moore was born in 1961, remembering Northern Ireland and Derry before 1969, when everything seemed to change overnight. Bombings, shootings, arrests. In addition to those killed by the British army on January 13th of Bloody Sunday, there were more people killed and maimed in 1972 than any other year of the conflict.
The police station aside Moore’s primary school was a target that brought semi-permanent military installations near the school. On the fourth of May, Moore was racing at the bottom of the school yard when a soldier fired a rubber bullet that struck the bridge of his nose. The nose was utterly flattened, his eyes hung out, and his face was a bloody mess.
Someone ran to his house to tell his father, who told him he would be okay; he would be all right. But after two weeks in hospital, he finally learned that he would be blind the rest of his life. He’d thought it was the bandages preventing him from being able to see. He cried that night, to think that he’d never see his mother’s face again, never see his father. And the next day was his first day as a blind person for the rest of his life.
But he thrived in life, owning a house, pubs, playing in bands, marrying, having two loving daughters, directing the city’s football club—he doesn’t even think of his blindness except when he’s giving these talks. And he gives these talks because he wants to explain what makes his positivity possible:
Moore comes from a good family who caught him when he fell and put him back on his feet, comes from a good community and all the opportunities available because he was able to go to school. Even as a blind person, he had these many gifts, privileges, and opportunities. This realization led him to sell his pubs and turn to philanthropy, launching Children in Crossfire, helping kids who are under-resourced not because there isn’t enough money in the world but not enough will.
Richard Moore showed us a portrait of his daughters when they were young and told us we were doing something that he would never be able to do, which was to see his daughters, who, he has been told, are beautiful. His inability to see this for himself is a legacy of war. But he never needed revenge on the soldier who launched the bullet. Revenge, he learned, is drinking a cup of poison and thinking the other person would die. He learned this overhearing a conversation between his mother and brother who was bitterly angry. She told him that if he wanted to help Richard, help Richard. But you’re not going to be helping Richard by hurting someone else.
Moore finally met the soldier, Charles, on a stage before 2,000 people, in the presence of the Dalai Lama. Forgiveness, he learned, is the gift you give yourself; it’s about you, finding a way to be happy. Forgiveness won’t change the past or take away the future, but it does change the future.
What Moore wants people to know is that every single person loves somebody and is loved by someone; so try to see the good in every person. Good people can do bad things. That doesn’t mean you can’t forgive them, or that you can’t see the good in them. Doing so is difficult, but it’s a thing we should try to do.
John Harkin thanked Richard Moore and reminded us all of what we just heard: With the many choices we have in our lives, we can contribute to building up or tearing down. With every little choice, we can choose to make things worse or making things better. And so give someone a good experience with you; there’s a good chance they’ll pass that good experience on to others.
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