But By the Grace Of…

So, this was how it felt.

Normal.

Really?

It had taken long enough.

This year, when the doctor had asked those simple questions, it had been less easy to bluff.  This one had actually been watching.  That ready answer, flat and so used to snow balling these people, had actually been caught, called out, and paid attention to.  For once.  The doctor had ignored his answer, asked if he had a plan.  Silly question.  Of course he had a plan.  Since when had he not had one, was the real question.  Enduring the pain was a normal part of life for him.  Ignoring it until it became the annoying wet streaks on his face, shaking his body and tying his guts more tightly than his useless shoe laces.  This didn’t happen too much, anymore.  Mostly going past those tent towns they called encampments these days, feeling the despair of those human beings now denominated by a noun which, a decade ago, had still been an adjective.

Homeless.

No longer called homeless people, now, they were just called homeless.  Not people, merely things.  Things to be avoided, things that had wanted this fate.  Things that were “in their comfort zones.”

Right.

The doctor had been a sharp one, this time.  She had insisted.  As if she’d really wanted to know.  What was his plan, and did he have the tools at hand, ready to carry it out?  He’d been ‘there’ enough to know that this time, he’d better answer with ‘sincerity’ if he wanted to stay out of a pewter cage.  He couldn’t afford a gilded one.  He’d pretended to perk up, injecting some notes into the song he gave her about merely thinking about it, once in a while.  He admitted to the sadness, but who wouldn’t be sad in a world like this?  Happiness was a pill he couldn’t afford.

She’d put him on the pill, alright.  That bit of paper, to keep away the other bit of paper that would ensure his useful longevity.  Useful to those who liked working in funny farms, that is.  But by the grace of God and Mr. Spock, there go I.   So he took her paper, and he even filled the Rx.  Now, weeks later, the happy pills had begun to do the job she and her brother medics in the ‘healing’ professions had intended.

He no longer felt sad.

And now, he could even walk past the homeless people without crying, just like everyone else.

But it didn’t make the pain go away.

–

Stay safe,

and I hope we all find love, and good Health Care. -Shira Destinie

Action Items:

1.)  Share your thoughts on the importance of empathy, and how we Human Beings might start to build a more fully inclusive society for all of us, and how we can start to give a damn about each other.  2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses these thoughts. .

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Shira

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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