Month: February 2022

I will always love you

Dear Child of Mine I want you to know that I will always love you. I loved you when you were the size of a grain of rice and your heart beat was undetectable. When you made me sick and took away my ability to tie my own shoe laces. The strongest motivator to go through two days of the most pain I have ever felt was you. We hadn’t even met but I would have endured that pain for as long as it took to bring you into this world. When you screamed at me for hours and refused to give me sleep, I loved you in every sob and exhausted scrap left of my being. When your head was adorned with delicate, golden curls or when you scowled with the flick of one eyebrow, I swooned at your beauty. You could be covered in snot and vomit and I still think you are the most lovely thing I have ever seen. When you pulled my trousers down in the middle of a busy …

In the mirror

I started working for a charity last year that is focussed on seeing homelessness eradicated. Whilst I have always been aware of homelessness and have been involved with charities that work with homeless or deeply impoverished people, I have lived a life that has come nowhere near what people suffer when their choices and resources are so diminished that they have to live on the street. I walk past someone who is sleeping on the street, see them in the news or depicted in films, hear stories about the injustices and abuse that have led people to the lowest of lows, and think that I am so far away from them that we have nothing in common. It creates a sense of distance and separateness that means I don’t stop on the street when I see someone begging or just clearly in need, because my mind has these thoughts: They’re asking for money and I don’t think that’s what I should give them, or more often than not I don’t have cash anyway I don’t …