Memorable Passage Assignment

To the everlasting credit of the people of district 12, not one person claps. Not even the ones holding the betting slips, the ones who are usually beyond caring. Possibly because they knew me from the hob, or knew my father, or have encountered Prim, who no one can help loving. So instead of acknowledging applause, I stand there unmoving while they take part in the boldest form of dissent they can manage. Silence. Which says we do not agree. We do not condone. All of this is wrong.
Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of district 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is and old and rarely used gesture of our district, and occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love.

This is very meaningful to me because sometimes in life there are things that you do not know what to do or how to even handle them.  Life is always so unexpected and just in your face and all over the place.  We are literally faced with life or death situations every single day and yet most of us, like Katniss, find a way to just keep going.  There are people out there who don’t make it to the finish line though.  People who just fall short of their own expectations or even just the world’s expectation.  I really hate that because life is such a precious thing that we have.  It is the most powerful thing in the universe that we have control of and I hate it when people  just throw it away for nothing.  We find ourselves only being so dominated by only caring about how we fit in and how society will look upon each and every one of us.  In 2001, more than 10 years ago, there were 30,000 suicides in the United States alone. These people were in situations they couldn’t handle, or going through life thinking that no one cared.  The fact is that we all care.  I could not go through my life thinking that I could have done something more to save someone’s life just by careing. By doing the gesture with their hands, district twelve showed their support for Katniss. They reached out to her, they showed her that they cared.  This could have been something that was key in her (possible) survival during the Hunger Games.  Saving a life is just as easy as caring. Even for someone that is lazy, that’s pretty easy to do.   And in this day of technology, we barely even have to raise a finger or even get off of the couch.  CARE!