<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">We Belong Together</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br></div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">Driving one day in the city, I saw</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">in a library window a sign</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">reading WE BELONG TOGETHER. A warm</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">hand, a hand of human language, reached up</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">to touch my heart. It was as if some split-off</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">lost side of myself had spoken. What Eros</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">in the story those three words tell. Imagine</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">if we took them for our message, could</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">anything stop us? What if we came</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">together around the shared beauty</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">of who we really are, beyond labels</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">and identity? If we said "We belong</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">together" and meant it, think what we could do.</div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><br></div><div class="elementToProof" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; font-family: Calibri, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Thomas R. Smith</div></div></body></html>