A Reflection on Suffering

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” ~Arundhati Roy

**Please note that names, details and locations have been altered 

to protect the privacy of those involved in the story below. **

Relebohile enters the room where I am conducting child sponsorship interviews at her school and looks around nervously.

“It’s okay,” I try to reassure her.  “This is just a conversation where I get to know you better.”

Immediately her stature changes, her face lights up, and she eagerly greets me before sitting down.

She answers each of my questions with that same bright, beautiful smile. She tells me all about her English class, her favourite novel, how much she loves school, and that one day she hopes to be an English teacher.

As the interview comes to a close, I realize Relebohile has more than answered all my questions. I’m about to thank her for her time, but then pause a moment and say, “This is a safe place. Is there anything else you want to tell me?" 

Relebohile looks down for a moment and then back at me.

“Yes Me’ (mother), ” she says. “…I don’t have enough eat.”

I am startled. I struggle for a moment to regain a calm composure and simply say, “What do you mean?”

“We have very little Me’. Sometimes the neighbours give us something…but we are still hungry.”

Relebohile explains her father died four years ago. Being the primary breadwinner, his loss was not only emotionally painful, but made her family incredibly vulnerable. In order to try and provide for the children, Relebohile's mother collects and sells firewood. Relebohile tells me her mother frequently leaves for long stretches of time and she is never sure when her mother will return home.  Essentially, Relebohile and her younger brother live alone.

I struggle to find words, any words. I can’t tell her everything will be okay because it might not be. I can’t tell her things will get better because I can’t know that they will. I can’t even promise that her school fees will be sponsored because we receive so many requests from so many needy families.

“You are very brave,” I finally tell her. “You should be very proud.”

As I leave the school grounds I find that I am grateful for rain. It hides my own tears as I make the long trek home through muddy fields.

She is 15. Just 15. She is but a child, and yet alone she raises her brother. Alone she tries to find enough food to eat. Alone she works to maintain her first class standing at school.  

I am aware her story is not unique. Yet, there was something about her bright smile and excitement about school juxtaposed against the harsh reality of her life at home that was enough to break my heart that day.

The rain is coming down hard now, flooding the narrow dirt path. My clothes are soaked through but I hardly notice as I look out into the vast expanse of open space. I remember a prayer I once heard attributed to Mother Theresa: Lord break my heart so completely the whole world falls in.

The truth is that suffering and injustice should break our hearts. Archbishop Desmond Tutu defines the African philosophy of ubuntu as “a person is a person through other people. It is not ‘I think therefore I am.’ It says rather: ‘I am human because I belong.’ I participate, I share.” He further explains that when one of us suffers, we all suffer.

When we are confronted with such suffering, it seems to me that there are three very common human responses. The first is to block it out because we are afraid of what will happen if we truly engage with someone else’s pain. The second response is a kind of cynicism. Why bother when nothing ever seems to change? The third response is to answer the call to act in love. In order to do this, I believe we must be just crazy enough to believe that the small acts of love that take place every day around the world matter. We must dare to hope that suffering can be redeemed and transformed because if Relebohile can dare to believe that her world will change—if she can dare to believe that she will one day attend college and become a teacher—who are we to settle for cynicism?

 Ultimately, to act in love we must be idealistic enough to follow the moral giants who have gone before us; we must walk with those who have had the courage to stand in solidarity with the marginalized, claiming another world is possible.