Be kind, even to those who you deem fit to judge

We were in Williams Sonoma surrounded by $350 saucepans and $500 Kitchen Aid contraptions. The environment could best be described as genteel, the dulcet tones of Christmas carols being crooned over the loudspeakers, the smell of freshly baked food in the demonstration kitchen fused with the smell of expensive sprayed scents wafting through the store.  You could be forgiven for thinking that all over the world families were happily looking forward to sitting at sumptuous Christmas banquets together with linen tablecloths and silver soup tureens.

But right outside the door in the heat of the day where the air conditioning doesn’t cool the streets and the Christmas carols don’t fill the air were a couple of teenagers. Teeth chipped, hair unwashed, skin dehydrated and filthy, wearing hoodies and tracksuit pants despite the 35 degree temperatures. “Off their faces” would be the colloquial way to describe them. Sad, confused, brain-addled, desperate would be just as fitting.

I watched as the young woman repeatedly hit the man she was with. She was angry, screaming, out of control, out of her mind as she hit him and screamed at him. He just carried on walking. I imagined him retaliating at some point. Turning around and defending himself and being accused of hitting her.  He looked so sad. She looked so lost.

I teetered between the two worlds. I didn’t feel comfortable in either.  It’s an onerous thing to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. To worry about every human interaction you see, to analyse and stress over every scene that plays out before you.

In the air-conditioned comfort of the next store surrounded by expensive home wares and soft cushions I called the police.  I wanted this young girl to get some help. I knew that she was not okay. I know that she had probably imbibed a cocktail of drugs and it certainly didn’t look like she was going home to a solid meal on the table and a family agonizing over her wellbeing.  I know that at some level it was her “choice” to take drugs but I know that nobody takes drugs intending to be an addict. I know that there are very few people living that life because they just used drugs. Something drove her there.  Her life was not the life lived out in the Wiliams Sonoma catalogue.
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I know that if the police came and took her to get some help at a mental health facility her chances of immediate “recovery” would be almost non existent.  I know that you cannot undo years of pain and anguish, of years spent on the streets, I know that she would be angry. I also know that she probably has no reason to get clean or to stop using, to get off the streets.

And it breaks my hearts in a million pieces.

Today I wrote a post about the baby being found in a drain at Quakers Hill (you can read it on Kidspot here) and I wonder what life that baby’s mum lives. what pain she carries around, what drove her to abandon her baby.

And that too breaks my heart.

It can be so harsh out there in the real world where the Christmas carols aren’t piped and the homewares aren’t prettily displayed.  Let’s not forget those people. let’s not forget how absolutely lucky we are. Let’s not forget to be kind to the people around us. Even the ones whom we deem fit to judge.