The Thread of Human Contact
Met with a student's parent today.
"So is there anything more we can do?" He asked, his tone already lowered by the battle with hopelessness.
I had heard the tone before. Sometimes I'd see those same students a year later, everything fine and dandy, worked out by the One beyond us. Other times students would fade away like episodes on a tv series long gone, only memories, faces I longed to understand, but which never fully materialized before me.
The separation between us strikes a chord, though, or rather a cord, a tie between us: I've felt that way before. I know how you feel. We almost know each other as we sympathize, travellers laughing at the same cramped conditions or the same bumpy road. But as soon as we have met, we part ways, offering what we can when we've not much left, fading from each other to become, "I met an African guy once. Nice guy."
"I'll see what I can do," I said. As the man walked back out of our office, I admired his cheerful attitude; hope in the goodness of El Shaddai, I guess. Providence. I've felt that way too. And I believe that miracles make that connection possible.