I Watched Fear Fade Away

Between the Roots, I watched fear fade away. Tonight we pulled up for the Soup Run and I noticed a woman trying to convince her son to come have a meal with her and his brother. He was so strung out he could barely talk. He is new to the street, and I do not know exactly what brought him there. From what I could see, money did not seem to be the issue, which stood out because many of the people I meet each week have known poverty for most of their lives. Whatever had brought this young man here, his mother was standing in front of him doing what family does when someone they love is slipping somewhere they cannot follow. She was trying to reason with him, trying to bring him home, trying to fix something she did not know how to fix. As we pulled in, the group started moving almost automatically. Two people grabbed water bottles and began filling them at the self-fill station. One of us from the Soup Run started dishing out soup while I handed over cups and spoons, and someone from the group helped pass them around. There was no meeting and nobody needed instructions. People simply knew we were there and started helping each other. Then I began handing out the harm reduction kits, and that was when I noticed the mother looking at us differently. The soup made sense to her. The water made sense. Feeding people made sense. The harm reduction kits did not. She asked what we were doing and then asked if I would talk to her son and convince him to come home. Instead, I found myself talking to her. I explained that we come every week with soup and water, and that the harm reduction supplies were something new we had started bringing. Not because I want to encourage anyone to keep using drugs, but because I want them to have a safer way to survive what they are doing today. I want her son alive long enough to reach the day when he might want something different. When that little bit of hope appears, then there is something we can work with. As we finished, we asked if anyone needed anything else and said what we normally say before leaving. Stay safe, God bless, see you next week. The woman stopped us and asked what agency we were with. I told her there was no agency. We do this because we care. That was when I saw the tear form, and then came the hugs. Nothing had actually been fixed. Her son did not suddenly agree to come home. He was still strung out, and she was still a mother worried about what might happen to her child after she left. Her fear was still real. But something had changed. The fear had not disappeared. It had faded behind the realization that when she could not be there, there were still people who cared whether her son ate, had water, stayed safer and made it through another week. Watching her brought me back to the first time I went out myself. I was not there to deliver food. I was there to create a video, and until that day most of my experience with homelessness had been from a distance. I had seen people across the street. I had heard the stories and the warnings about homelessness, addiction and life on the street. Then suddenly I was not looking from across the road anymore. I was standing right beside someone, and I was terrified. Were they dangerous? Could somebody attack me? Was I safe? What would happen if something went wrong? Most of what I feared came from what I did not know. Standing beside someone changed that. Nothing dramatic happened. I simply got close enough to see a person instead of everything I had imagined from a distance. Then I went back, and eventually I kept going back. The unknown slowly acquired names and faces. I heard stories, shared jokes and watched people take care of one another. I learned that the drugs I could see were not always what had put somebody on the street. Sometimes they came afterward, used to numb whatever had happened before. The problems were still there and some of the dangers were real, but understanding began taking up space that fear had once occupied by itself. I have watched the same thing happen with another fear in my life. I have agoraphobia. I still hate leaving my house, and there are plenty of days when staying inside is much easier than going anywhere. The Soup Run did not make that fear disappear. What it gave me was something worth putting in front of it. Every time I go out, there are people waiting, soup to serve, water to fill, conversations to have and somebody who may simply need to know that we remembered them and came back. That does not mean I am fearless when I am out there either. One of my biggest fears is still coming across someone alone who is not responding and realizing I may have to use naloxone or call for help. I carry the kits because I want to be ready, but being prepared does not make the thought less frightening. I hope I never have to use one. At the same time, I would rather carry that fear with me than walk away from someone because I was too afraid to help. Slowly, fear stopped taking up the entire view. I think that happens with many of the fears we carry. Sometimes the fear is real and deserves our attention, but sometimes what makes it grow is everything we do not know. We avoid the conversation because we do not know what will be said. We do not make the call because we fear the answer. We stay home because we do not know what will happen if we leave. We cross the street because we do not understand the person standing on the other side. When we keep walking away simply because we are afraid of what we might find, fear gets more room to tell us its version of the story. Getting beyond fear does not mean pretending there is nothing to fear. It does not mean walking blindly into danger or convincing ourselves everything will be fine. Sometimes it simply means getting close enough to understand what is actually there instead of allowing fear to fill in all the empty spaces. That mother still has reason to fear for her son. Someone living on the street may still fear being judged, ignored or treated as though they are a problem instead of a person. I still have days when leaving my house is difficult, and I still carry fears about what I might encounter once I am out there. None of those fears vanished tonight. But fear does not have to disappear before hope can arrive. Tonight a mother saw that people would look out for her son. I stood among people I was once frightened to stand beside. The people we visit each week saw us pull up again. Nothing about the world suddenly became safer or easier. The fear was still there, but now there was something standing in front of it. For her, it was knowing somebody would still show up for her son. For me, it has been understanding, purpose and people who give me a reason to keep walking out my own front door. Fear did not disappear for either of us. It simply stopped being the only thing we could see. Between the Roots, I watched fear fade as hope took its place. The fear may still be there tomorrow, but now there is something worth walking toward.