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| Artwork by Tarek Chemaly |
So it's raining again. No, this was not the first all-cleansing autumn rain. But it is raining at the most inopportune moment. People are literally living on the streets. Sure - easy for me to say. I have a roof above my head and food on my table. I just gave some mattresses and wraps to a family that has been displaced twice - I said it before, even in the most generous act there is an element of selfishness (will I be rewarded by life, God, the afterlife, etc....). But honestly, at this point I am not even thinking that. I am truly thinking - I have a bed. I do. They don't.
A while back I saw by accident a friend from school. He wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer and everyone used to mock him, except me to be honest. It was him who remembered me and engaged in a conversation. In the previous month to our conversation, he had lost his sister, and his father. Comparatively, all I lost was all my money. It seemed ridiculous to tell him so. He obviously needed to tell someone about his losses. I felt sheepish talking to him, mostly because he actually remembered me, and wanted to talk to me after all these years (of course, maybe he also wanted to speak to those who bullied him as well, kind and primitive as he was, so I am not really bragging).
Did I make a big deal about losing all my money on this blog? I did. But now I look around me and see all these flattened houses and villages and images of people living on the streets. Literally. Of people sending messages for infant formulas. Diapers. Hygiene products. One is rendered speechless. And rain comes at the most inhospitable of times. To quote the Supertramp song on which the title of this post is based: "It's only time that heals the pain/And makes the sun come out again" but time is a luxury some people do not have as they sleep under the rain - I think of the photo of the little girl sleeping on cement in front of a mosque due to lack of a mattress. I also quote from a different song, this time by Roger Hodgson (the voice of Supertramp, ironically! when he branched out on his own): "Time is always on the run/we've only just begun"... And all seems fleeting.
But as I said, I have the luxury of a roof above my head and a bed to sleep on.