I was walking through the city today, seeing people wrapped in blankets sleeping on the sidewalk, elders sorting through their belongings, women my mother’s age, women homeless as my mother is.
I thought it was the alienation I have been feeling towards this city, how we allow this. It is also the knowledge that these are people. Each person has a story, a real life that has brought them here. They are not only like my mother, they are my mother.
So I think to myself, I can’t do this to myself. I can’t come to this part of the city. It’s too hard.
As I walk, I come to realize that I can, of course, I can. The walk I have taken with my mother. Of course, I can. It encourages me to do more to help.