I wear a bracelet stamped with the words STAND UP. They are words I chose because I felt it was an important thing to do and I am not very good at it.

Over the years Scott and I did a lot of work in and for the Jewish community in Dallas: the Holocaust Museum, Jewish Family Services, Anti-Defamation League, as well as individuals with powerful and compelling stories. Creating videos with these folks taught me a lot about who I am and who I wish I were.

We are to be upstanders, not bystanders.

It is hard to stand up to bullies when we are afraid, not just of the bully, but of the consequences of being different. It’s easier to sit quietly and pretend to study our fingernails than to get involved.

There was an incident in high school when I saw courage and compassion come together in a single small moment. It has stayed with me for 50 years.

There was a boy in my class who was all brains, smaller than the other boys by a mile, but with an upbeat attitude despite the fact that he was bullied unmercifully for years, unprotected by teachers or other students.

Until one day.

It was English and the bigger boys (athletes with the meanness born of strength and the need for power) were tormenting our vulnerable classmate when we came into the room. The teacher was not there and the rest of us sat silent, cowed by our own inability to intervene. It was then that one boy, Dave Harper (I hope you don’t mind some praise 50 years after the fact) a respected and well-liked athlete in his own right, stood up and told the others to cut it out. And they did.

Probably not forever, but in that moment, in that class, they cut it out.

Such a simple thing. Such a huge, courageous and compassionate thing to do.

Dave was an upstander that day, not a bystander.

And for this moment, and hopefully for all the moments ahead, I hope to be one, too.

I STAND WITH UKRAINE!