The Lions Club of Land O’Lakes Roar

Nawar El Khouri Hage | Sep 11, 2024

I was 15 years old when my grandfather stopped breathing. I recall screaming all around me, and in what I can only think was a moment of an adrenaline rush, I started pounding his chest. He breathed. It was two weeks later that he eventually passed away.

I walked in a daze for many days trying to understand how mortality works. And in doing so, trying to cry. I had no tears. He was my role model, the man I looked up to, yet I couldn't shed a tear.

Tears. Droplets of water. Draughts. Floods. Tsunamis.

How is it that the same molecule can be the cause of misery and abundance all at once? How can one shed tears of sadness and tears of joy? How can one place on earth suffer for lack of water, and at the same time, somewhere else around the globe, suffering occurs over the excess of it? Endless possibilities.

Possibilities. Aspirations. Dreams. Visions. Realizations.

I was a relatively new Lion in 2004, the concept of an all-encompassing fund that dispenses without the bureaucracy of paperwork to the needed cause anywhere around the world was too much for me to grasp. 

Yet, in the endless forms of that water molecule, a Tsunami occurred in Japan. That was the time that I understood the Lions Clubs International Foundation. The charitable arm of our organization. While other organizations waited to deploy funds, Lions stepped in first. The funds were there. The possibilities were there.

The vision that started in 1968: "... to support those in need through humanitarian services and grants that impact lives globally ..." suddenly made sense to me.

How is it that the same molecule can bring the happiest moments and stop all memories in an instance?

I have no answer to that.

But, one thing for certain, I am a believer in the endless possibilities that a vision created around 60 years ago brings to our world every day.

Till we meet again in a Roar dip your feet in the lakes, fish in the rivers, sing in the summer rain and join us at the Lions Club of Land O’Lakes on the 21st of Sept from 9-11am for a breakfast with a cause.