Poverty Rant

Last night, papa and I walked by a father sitting on the sidewalk, his two little girls were with him. Refugees, I thought. This is what that refugee crisis I read about on the news looks like for real.

Speechless. For once, I am speechless. I want to run open armed to them, pick them all up, and hug-carry them all the way home (to my home, their home, it didn't matter just home), feed them and then believe that from then on their lives would be back to normal. Instead, I looked away and kept walking to the cafe we were going to for a late night snack. I kept replaying the image of them in my head. I am still picturing it, them. The bone thin father's searching eyes, sunken face, big cup for spare change in a hand coming out of a tattered black shirt. The girls were maybe 5 and 7. One was under a pink coat the other a blanket. They slept on an foam mattress pad that would be out of place anywhere but a dumpster.

What if they were me and my papa? That man looked at his daughters the same way my papa looks at me.

I felt sick, I drank a big glass of wine to dull everything swirling in my head and heart and gut. I barely touched the food. Since last night, every time I pass a homeless person, or another maybe migrant family on the street that family jumps into my mind's eye.

Failing to do anything made me feel guilty and bad and dirty.

Tonight I was berating myself after supper for not giving food to the man who asked for our leftovers (not money folks,  this man had asked for the our actual scraps) I came home and asked myself how could I have just done nothing. I hadn't even touched my plate and didn't like my meal, we had extra bread in our breadbasket. It would have cost nothing and I sat at a cafe table and choked back tears instead.

And then I had this thought: Why is it this affecting me so much more than it doesback home? How many tears have I shed bouncing happily by the homeless Santa in Robinson court? Are the hungry less hungry and the homeless housed?

No. But I become used to it. Homeless Santa is a jolly guy, the kids all eat supper and everyone is fine because of those charities downtown, and the drunks are just drunks so don't shed a tear right? Or is it right?

The shock is what’s getting me.

Remember when you were first old enough to fully comprehend poverty? I do, I remeber being shocked and saddened by local poverty back then. When I learned that the world is not fair, and that I am lucky. I am not a better more morally sound person, I am not smarter, not more worthy of eating supper and sleeping somewhere safe, but that I am fortunate to have the family, opportunities and blessings that have come my way.

Writing this blog won't put that family in a home or give that man three meals a day. But maybe it will help you and I look at the world with fresh eyes. Averting my eyes then spending the next two days crying about it doesn't help anyone. What's the solution? The answer is it's an impossible problem to solve. A utopian world where we are all safe and sound would be perfect. But that isn't anybody’s reality. Instead, I guess the only thing to do is whatever we can, and for me to try to remember, don't only be sympathetic when I'm shocked by the poverty in Paris, because it is just as real on the streets of our hometown.