Chances are good you’ve never met Carrie.

But then again, maybe you have. Maybe you have seen the profoundly sad face, the discolored skin, the washed-out eyes. Maybe you have come close to her exhaustion.

Maybe you have touched her leathery hand. I have.

I am walking downtown in the noon hour on a Sunday. I feel full of the joy of Eucharist. My backpack is full of another kind of holy bread—fresh baked bannock, neatly sliced into peanut butter sandwiches.

In the block ahead of me, on Twelfth Avenue, near White Bird Clinic, I espy a woman sitting on the pavement, her back resting against a white picket fence.

I approach. She stares straight ahead.

I gently position myself in front of her, fix my eyes on her eyes, pull the earbuds from my ears, and lean down toward her face.

“How are you doing today?” I ask.

She turns her face away from me, and with a dismissive wave of the hand snorts a dismissive reply.

I look at her with love, my heart aching at the broken shard of humanity before me.

“How are you doing today?” I ask again, gently.

She looks at me from the corner of her eye, understanding, perhaps, that I mean what I am asking, and that I am not going away.

“I baked some bread this morning,” I say, “and I have some whole wheat sandwiches with fresh ground peanut butter in my backpack.”

I feel pretty certain that she is not expecting this conversation.

“Would you like a sandwich?” I ask hopefully.

Well, OK. Yes.

I slip off my backpack and unzip the front pouch. And I reach out my arm toward her with the promised sandwich. She reaches up her arm to receive it.

And in this instant we notice the beautiful and unexpected.

“Well looky there,” she says, coming alive. She points to her left wrist, then to my right wrist. 

Her left wrist, with six copper filigree bracelets, my right wrist, with six silver filigree bracelets.

“Hey, we’re sisters,” she says.

“My name is Maria,” I say.

“My name is Carrie,” she says.

Sisters, indeed!

My heart breaks open with joy. I think hers does, too.

And now today, a few months later, I see on the front page of my newspaper, above the fold, a photo of my newfound sister, and an article about Carrie’s unexpected death. On the front porch of White Bird Clinic. In near-freezing winter temps. 

Carrie. Gone.

“She needed shelter … and we failed her,” the caption reads above a photo of “Mama Carrie,” famously known and beloved within my town’s homeless community. And in the police community, too, it turns out.

“Legalize Survival,” a hand-painted sign reads above her tent in the famous Whoville homeless camp photo.

Someone who knew Carrie and the complex burden of sorrow that she bore says to the reporter, “She needed shelter. She needed basic shelter, and we failed her.”

We failed her.

Did I fail Carrie? No, this person speaking to the reporter says:We failed her.

Not “big government.” Not labyrinthine systems. We—we—and the systems we depend on, failed her.

My people failed humanity in one of its most fragile and exposed forms.

My people failed the test, at least in this one tragic, scarred, and uniquely beloved expression of humanity.

Is there something I could have done to shelter my sister from the storm of homelessness and raw-edged vulnerability?

I want to say No. But I know that the answer, also, in some way, is Yes.

I advocated, but I could have advocated more. I could have pressed harder into local circles of power and influence.

The important thing is this: There are many more Mama Carries in my town. There likely are Mama Carries in your town, too.

Maybe we can be ready at all times, or at least at some times, to share a sandwich, a little time, a little “real presence.” We can be ready at all times, or at least at some times, to be surprised—by the kinship we encounter, to be sure. And surprised, also, at the generosity at the heart of the Master’s teaching.

And, surprised in these ways, maybe we can press our compassion, our sense of human decency, and our common humanity a little farther into the halls of power, enter the difficult conversations, or begin them if we must. 

Press a little harder, knowing that our as-yet undiscovered kin consigned to the shadows, have precious little voice beyond yours, beyond mine.