Alyson

Whenever it rains, I think of homeless people. I pray for them every time I hear thunder. First, I am sad, because I hate the fact that there are people freezing outside, hungry, alone, who are forced to accept this involuntary shower. My sadness takes a sharp turn towards anger, as I remember some of the kids “like me” who sit in their rooms ungrateful for the bed they lay on, the floor underneath it, the structure that houses them, and the “boring” but SAFE community that surrounds this structure. My heart drops when I realize that I am like them—or have been. I can analyze the rain whipping against my window and think about people without windows, but how many of the countless privileges of my daily life am I overlooking?

Realizing I am surrounded by things that are all products of luck, my mind scrambles to come up with ways to show gratitude and to protect these gifts. I think about the pledge, something I have been thinking about a lot lately. I have always known saying it as one solid way to show how thankful I am for my life. I feel good when I do it, when I stand for the pledge. I feel even stronger knowing I am one of the three kids who stands for the pledge in my homeroom period, even though I know that fact should have nothing to do with it. It shouldn’t, but it does. How could it not? There has been many a time when I suddenly felt small, weird, and endangered as I got up from my seat, only to realize I was a tree in a desert. Once I had risen, it was the kids sitting indifferently below who seemed strange. Those 20 seconds that I stand—despite the 30 pairs of eyes tied to me like ropes pulling me back down to my chair—I feel a safety in knowing that I was strong enough to resist them and pay my dues through the pledge.

Thunder.

Now I’m scared because I have the sudden thought that because of the kids who don’t care good people here will stop trying and our luck will end—because who will stand for them? ♦