Beyond Survival

 Chapter One - Letting Go of E-go

I will never forget that day. It was one of those days that changes you - forever.  You wake up one person and go to bed another. It happened in a homeless shelter. I would volunteer to serve food every few months.

It was quarter of four and I walked bundled in my down jacket, looking at the pavement and my new Sorrell fur-lined winter boots. It was frigid that day, so cold the snow squeaked under my boots. The wind was fierce and I remember complaining to myself why did I leave my warm, cozy house?

As I approached the shelter, I looked up to see a red shape beginning to take form. A small child was peering into the shelter window. Her small hands were cupped around her face, which was pressed against the frosty glass.

When I finally got close enough to take in the whole picture, my heart skipped a beat. I had seen her before, eating with her mother at the shelter, but I had never really seen her. Today I saw the sandal shoes stuffed with sports socks three sizes too big.  Today I saw her worn gloves, her thin red windbreaker jacket and the hole ripped through the collar of her sweater.  She could not have been more than four, maybe five years old.  She turned to me and looked into my eyes. Today I saw her for the first time, a cold, tired, scared, hungry little girl.

She was alone. I looked around for her mother, but all I could see were hundreds of tiny little footprints made by someone small walking back and forth in the snow. A sick feeling crept into the pit of my stomach.

   "Honey, have you been here all day?"

   She nodded. I gasped

   "Where is your mommy?"

   She shrugged her little worried shoulders. I could see her body shivering, her lips purple, her baby soft cheeks bright red from the wind tearing at them relentlessly.

   "Oh my God," I breathed. "Sheila, open the door!" I shouted through the glass.

   Sheila, another unsung hero who volunteered at the shelter ever day her arthritis allowed, was walking by with a tray of stuffing. She saw the panic in my eyes and hurried over to the door. She glanced down at the little girl next to me, then back to me quickly putting down her tray and unlocking the door.

   "It is okay," I told the girl. "We'll find your mommy."

   She reached her little hand out to me and I took it in mine, sweeping her into the warmth of the shelter.

   Nothing meant anything to me in that moment but that little hand warming in mine. That was the moment I connected with her and we just smiled at each other. I could feel what she was feeling, cold and scared, lost and hungry.  And the stuff of the world fell away.

   What does a designer label mean on a frigid day when a child has reached out her hand to you? In that moment you don't need credentials, and you don't need money. You need love and compassion for a fellow human being.  You need love and understanding, the connection of one human spirit to another. And it hit me. My life had become so off balance, so meaningless. I was spending my life trying to be someone else, someone better, different and more special than anyone else. In a moment I could see I wasn't living the truth.

Earlier that day, I volunteered out of pity. I felt sorry for "those people." It sickened me now to think I must have thought I was better than them. Just thinking of them as "those people" showed how I had distanced myself from them. Until now I never really knew how condescending that was.

I made a vow to myself that day to get off my high horse and become a human being again. Throwing away ego would allow me to be many things, most of all, myself, without masks, defenses or deception. I could live my life from a place of connection not only with myself but with others. I would offer my hand as an equal from that place of love and compassion within me. It was that moment of understanding that I began to see who I really was.