Strangers in our lives

 

 

April 29, 1998

 

 They brought Sharon roses for her birthday, men and women who could barely afford to make rent monthly, who have been struggling under the state and federal threat to ruin their lives, welfare veterans, whose livelihood has been challenged by jealous rich, who cannot bear the thought that someone, anyone, might have slipped through their net feeding the infernal capitalistic slave machine.

 Sharon has been assigned the arduous task of preparing these souls for their enslavement, changing their status from slaves of the handout machine to slaves of labor, and thus, each must learn the rules of the new games, to change over from making babies in order to increase their monthly allotment to kissing the ass of some boss.

 Many of these people were shuffled through the school system, passed along even though they hadn't learned anything, or learned so little they could not function, victimized by poverty, vicious parents, prejudice, illness, and each other, caught up in that monstrous life cycle of the street where sins are twisted into virtues, and people take pride in their ignorance.

 Sharon was assigned some of the worst, those people who did least well in the preliminary tests and could not handle traditional classes again, being disruptive or distracted, being too ground down under society's heal to care much about learning, about themselves, or about what happened to them. Most of them would never have come to Sharon's class on their own, without the threat of forced immediate loss of welfare, and the potential starvation of their children.

 Sharon finds the whole task beyond her, as all of those who attempt to save lives, do, struggling to make up for 12 or more years of bad education with six months of basic skills, she trying to make it possible that these people can pass the test that will allow them to seek jobs later -- neither she nor they aware of what happens if they don't pass. But at the same time, Sharon tries to give them tools that will allow them to learn on their own, lessons in self-education which is not part of the curriculum intended, but which she must include or else feel she failed them.

 And they, apparently touched by the effort, apparently needing to make it clear just how they feel about her, digging deep into nearly empty pockets to find money for roses, so that Sharon -- on her 43 birthday -- would know they appreciate the effort, even if six months or a year from now, they can't live up to the expectations.

 They just needed to let her know.