Poverty, My Brother

I Saw Poverty, and it Looked Like Me
In Honor of Blog Action Day 2008

I was raised in a middle class neighborhood by parents who did everything they could to shield me from Poverty. They did a good job, even when my older brother left home and started living on the streets. Sometimes, the phone rang late at night. My father answered it. I'd hear him talking. Then, I'd hear him put clothes on and leave the house. On the other end of the line had been a priest or some other good Samaritan in a city far away. He had picked my brother up on the street and found some identification with our home telephone number. My father had left the comfort of his bed in the middle of the night to wire my brother some money from the closest Western Union outlet.

Now and then, my brother found his way home. As much as my parents loved him, my younger brother and I were told never to let him in the house. He would come to the door disheveled, dirty, unkempt. And he smelled really really bad. His teeth were black and some of them were missing. His fingernails were dirty and broken off, like he'd been fighting. He carried a weird looking shoulder bag that reminded me of something Jimi Hendrix might have used. My parents let him shower, gave him some food and sent him on his way. I was told not to talk to him. I supposed he must have been dangerous.

He was, in a word, Poverty.