Seeing It Through

Seeing It Through

Seeing Through It by Kaze Gadway
“How do you immerse yourself in misery and hopelessness every day and not get burned out?” asks a friend in an online chat.
I remember being in India the first time and closing my eyes as I step over the bodies (some breathing) on the steps outside my apartment. My teeth clench so hard when children tug on my blouse to beg for food that my jaws hurt by evening. The pervasive poverty got too much for me. My written journals begin too often as “It is so difficult to…”
My journey through the next fifty years stumbles through enlarging my capacity to see through the horrible conditions to the moments of laughter, incredible courage, and profound meaning in ordinary people. I see those things that I count sacred not in spite of the hopelessness but in the midst of it.
This past week, during our heat wave in Albuquerque, I stop my car on the street where the homeless curl up in blankets on the sidewalk. At 9 a.m., warmth already seeps through the car windows from the surrounding concrete.
“I have water,” I call out. Immediately, four young basketball player size men (very tall) come to the car as I open the trunk. Laughing, they crowd around me as we talk and drink water. I could be in any social setting in the world. We talk, as usually, about where to get food and how to get cool. They mention that stores and gas stations will not let them inside to use the toilet or just to get cool. We talk about parks that have shade trees. They all wave and say something like “Have a good day, God bless you, and See you around.”
These short glimpses of ordinary people finding something good in moments in horrible conditions make my day.
I can’t burn out as long as I can see through to the underlying depth of wonder.