Holding On

"To be alive is to be vulnerable."
-- Madeline L'Engle

There's an office building about half way down the block that has a steep gravel driveway running behind it, from the street level up to a hilly area in back.  I walk that stretch of Eastlake twice a day.  They were a ways ahead of me but caught my eye immediately when I stepped outside onto the sidewalk.  She, in her faded jeans, worn jacket, tennis shoes and backpack.  He, in black pants, black shirt, black baseball cap and gold hoop earrings.  He had a backpack too, a nicer one.  Purple.  He may have been as old as 22.  She definitely wasn't.  It immediately felt off.

As they walked she ducked her head slightly toward him the way 17-year-old girls do when they're insecure and under the control of someone who they think loves them.  He paid her no heed.  They didn't speak.  He never looked at her.  She was with him but they were not together.  And his grip....  He held on to her, not by the hand but by the top of the wrist.  They weren't going somewhere; he was taking her somewhere.

I was getting closer when he turned up the gravel ramp toward the weeds under the Mercer Street ramp.  By the time I crossed the street they were at the top of the ramp.  He cut off along the chain link fence and they were gone.

I know she was not safe.

There are times when the sense of paralysis is swift and overwhelming.  "You have to do something!" careening through your brain mixes with "There is nothing I can do to stop this."  The whole thing lasted seconds but my thoughts covered a lot of ground in that time.  Angry tears flushed mascara to my lap as I drove home.  I was livid.  With him, with me, with the whole situation.  Should I have tried to talk to them?  I was so far behind I'd have had to make a bit of a scene to do that, but I've made a very public scene before on behalf of a young woman and it worked and I would do it again...and better.  But do it and say...what?  Or call the police?  "Yeah, um, I think the girl down the sidewalk is in trouble; could you send someone right away? and I'll climb the fence and try to find them in the foot-trails under the freeway and if I do I'll follow or stall them until you get here."  Maybe I should have called.  The police here have done a fair amount of work around trafficking issues.  Or maybe I should have attracted attention in hopes that they'd think I needed help.  Sometimes, though, attention places the girl in more danger than she's already in.  The need to prove loyalty intensifies.  The wrist grip tightens.  To notice her is personal.  She is not there for her.  No one should notice her.

And yet, notice is imperative.

There are a couple of women in my life who I wonder about all the time.  They are young but adult, relatively independent, making choices.  They have taken and stopped many a hand extended toward them.  Some of those hands were extended for good, some for ill.  They don't always know the difference.

We have this idea that we can do so much.  We raise money, we write letters, we call our senators.  We host awareness events, we attend conferences, we volunteer on work trips.  We write books, we change laws, we throw people in prison.  We rescue and we provide counseling and job training and we talk about systemic problems.  The modern-day abolition movement runs on the very idea of eradicating slavery forever.  It won't happen.  At least not in this lifetime.  It's good work but I don't believe any of it is enough for all time.

But I do believe in doing it.
And then in doing it again.

"Write me of hope and love, and hearts that endured."
-- Emily Dickinson

A month ago Jonathan & I attended a fundraising dinner in Walla Walla for a nonprofit that provides orphan support in Jamaica.  Money was raised that night for three projects, each of them valuable investments in the furtherance of life for thousands of orphaned children.  A few months ago a I helped a friend with a scholarship fundraiser here in Seattle, benefitting young people trying to move beyond extreme poverty in the Philippines.  Last night I spent hours pouring over the website and mission materials of an orphanage in Kenya.  A gal I've met with visited someone there this year, putting it on my radar.  I'm deeply drawn to this kind of work for a number of reasons.  It's along a path I've been on the past few years.

Noticing is part of who I am. I know that none of these projects can fill all the gaps.  I've been through enough grief to know that sometimes you just have to accept the holes and learn to live with them.  Loss is real.  But it's not all the same.  We all face losses but some losses are more ripping for us than others.  So these projects are important pieces of protection and care, of notice, and where the fill is love the holes can become less sharp around the edges.

Kids become orphans in many ways.  For many of them, their bodies tell heartbreaking stories of abuse and neglect.  In her address at the dinner, Carla Francis Edie, head of Jamaica's Child Development Agency, emphasized that many of the children in their system need extensive psychotherapy to deal with the profound abuses that landed them in the state system to begin with.  I hope that one way or another they'll get it.

But that's not all I hope for.

Carl Robanske, EO's founder, interviewed a 14 year old girl whose story was shared at the dinner.  She held up her hand, showing him the scars she bears from the time her mother flew at her face with a machete.  If she hadn't raised her hand...  Carl spent very little time discussing EO's work but he didn't need to.  He summed it up in 3 words:  "We hold them."

I'm for holding.

I feel haunted by the girl on Eastlake.  I know we all have our versions of this story...real scenarios, and if not our own then others'; and, when others', where we wonder if we should step in or not, where we wonder if we made the wrong decision, whatever the decision was.  There are all kinds of reasons not to, many of them good ones.  The decision is not always straight forward.  I don't berate myself, but I do feel the bind.  But she feels it more.  Well actually I don't know about that -- she may not feel it.  But I know she's in it, and someday it may become more than she can bear.  Regardless of whether it does or not, though, it's heartbreaking that she is bearing it.  Some people say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  In some cases that may be true and life is found in or from all of it; but in any case I'd rather strength be gained by what we are behind, by the good that we hold, not at the hands of exploitation or pain for its own sake.  I tend to think that's the only way pain makes us stronger....we gain strength through the hands held out to us that offer hope, whether they are the hands of people or the hands of Hope in the heart.  It's a given that there will be pain and grief.  I don't deny that nor, even in my losses, do I wish it away.  But it should not be the only thing that grows us.

I am just home from a week in Alabama and South Carolina, where I spent hours and hours listening to women tell defining stories from their lives. Holding was thematic, literally for some...holding a dying child, wanting to be held by a deceased mother, holding a depressed husband, dreams of a grandfather's hands. And then there's that holding of the wrist...  Holding is not neutral. And at its best it won't be enough either. But where it is loving presence and support, affirmation of human value, rest, redemptive touch and respectful offering, it is good.

I'm for that.

_________________
©2011 Mindy Danylak

see also at:
http://geographyofgrace.com/2012/10/08/holding-on/