To the man sitting outside at Safeway, ready for the night, and all I offer is hot coffee and a pastry, and he is peeing now, on the side of the building, and though I have seen much more in my young years I am startled, and wish him a good evening, and he thanks me, it's going to be a long night, he says. And I drive my nice heated car home in the 30 degree weather to the apartment without enough windows but is nonetheless so well heated and with a huge sliding glass door and how could I ever be ungrateful when I have been given so much?
And to the kiddos at Blue Ridge, dirty fingernails and so many with permanent lice in their hair--who knew it is so expensive to remove? And many don't have their own washing machines and all the quarters it costs to kill the parasites, let alone scissors and glue and crayons at home, which is why they're always so worried when they don't finish art projects at school.
And to the leaves in piles on the sides of the streets, grace and more grace piling up, falling down.
To each day of sunshine in December, how hard winter is for me and yet full of its own particular beauty.
To American flags in churches (ask those questions honey, should they be there?--but with love for the bride and not malice in your heart).
To G, J, and J, mama of two cerebral palsy brothers I work with each morning. 'Dejelo mi esposo,' she told me when we met. They live at the YWCA, and she works at Burger King, saving money to rent a house with the four kids and her own mother.
And to dented cars when mine has none and tin can trailer hovels when I dream of (and expect!) a handmade home of wood and glass some day.
Oh, how entitled we are, when we deserve no thing.
Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating on my kids in Honduras by falling in love with these kids here. But the gifts we are given are not exclusive to each other. By receiving one, you don't negate the others. And oh, I have been given a thousand, thousand gifts.
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