I decided to walk to work this morning. Unusual for me in the winter.

On my way, I happened to see an unhoused woman curled up on the cold sidewalk on the other side of the street, surrounded by the small universe of her belongings, sobbing. People hurried to get past her, stepping around her like she was a puddle or a lamppost or an inconvenience.

And then I realized that I had kept moving too. I was across the road. I didn’t know what to do for her. Surely someone passing next to her would stop. All simple excuses I told myself about why I had kept walking.

When I got to work, I asked a downtown colleague, trained in responding, to check on her. But the truth is, I still walked by. And that sits like a stone in my chest.

There’s a real shame that rises in me in moments like that – this sense that I’m failing some invisible test of humanity, or compassion, or whatever Jesus meant when he said love one another. I don’t think he meant perfectly. But still, I feel the sting of having looked the other way in a time of someone else’s need.

As I crossed the street up further, towards City Hall, I found myself wondering – not about the circumstances that placed her on that sidewalk. But about whether she longs for anyone in the midst of her utter despair. A line popped into my head as I walked: Do you ever cry for your mother?

I wondered if she ever wishes she could reach for her mother, or someone – anyone – the way a child reaches up when they’re scared or tired or hurting. I wondered if she remembers what it feels like to be held. Really held. The very thought of that chokes me up.

I don’t have a tidy moral to end this with. Just a hope that next time, I’ll be braver. That I’ll set aside whatever fear it is that holds me back in those moments. That I’ll at least meet her eyes and tell her I see her. That I’ll remember we all come from someone’s arms, and most of us are still longing to return to them.

This all brought me back to a poem called All the Days We Did Not Live. It tumbled out unexpectedly a few months ago – about the slow erosion of our tenderness, our humanity. Maybe it was waiting for this moment to make sense. 

all the days we did not live
we scrolled past
hunger,
homelessness,
loneliness,
drowning in abundance –
as the world starved
in plain sight.
we mastered the art
of accumulation,
and forgot
the radical grace
of giving.

all the days we did not live
we built towers
of glass,
laced the heavens
with satellites and signal,
while the neighbours slept
on pavement.

all the days we did not live
we cured plagues,
mapped the genome,
split the atom,
while children perished
for want of water
cleaner
than our conscience.

all the days we did not live
we preached freedom
into microphones,
while cages filled
with migrants;
we praised equality
from the podium,
while pressing
bodies to the asphalt.

all the days we did not live
we worshipped
convenience,
delivered packages
faster than thought,
withheld
tenderness from the souls
right beside us.

all the days we did not live
we forged weapons
that could erase
the world
in a single breath,
yet could not summon
the will
to stop a single war.

all the days we did not live
we were rich
in everything
but the courage to change—
abundant in progress,
bankrupt of compassion,
alive in flesh,
absent in spirit.

all the days we did not live
rise
like scaffolds in the dusk,
monuments
to our silence,
the marrow
of our own refusal.

all the days we did not live
stand
like statues,
memorials to our paradox—
we had everything,
every tool
in our hands,
everything
within reach,
and we remained
empty-handed.