A News Story to Remember

I’m sure I couldn’t take a steady diet of a newspaper like The New York Times, but I benefit as a citizen by reading the Sunday version every week.  As a political junkie, I can follow stories from all over the world, and now, with strange sights in the sky, even stories from out of this world.    

But there was a different world represented in an article in last Sunday’s New York Times. The story was found, or maybe it would be fairer to say it was buried, on the back page of the “Opinion” section.  The article featured a photography project begun fifteen years ago by a college student.  The student travelled to Appalachia to record the experiences of one family who was dealing with one of the common effects of the Opioid crisis—children being raised by grandparents.  The photo project focused specifically on the experience of a girl who was three years old at the time. 

The college student hadn’t planned on what followed.  She stayed in touch with the family for the next fifteen years.  By following and recording the girl’s life, the photographer saw first-hand the effects of multi-generational poverty.  At times, the photographer returned to find the grandparents and grandchildren living in a camper or at a friend’s house. 

The three-year-old girl is now eighteen, engaged, and getting ready to be married.  Her dream is to live in a house where she can open a day-care for other children.

What made the article particularly interesting is that the piece wasn’t written by the photographer, but by a writer who, in one way, had no personal contact with the girl or her family.  In another way, however, the writer had closer contact with the family than the photographer.  What I mean is that the writer grew up in foster care and also experienced poverty and insecurity.

The photography project brought many memories back to the writer, but the one that she focused on was the role a “witness” played in the girl’s life in Appalachia and in her own life.  The college photography student didn’t end her relationship with the family when her college course was over.  She became a “big sister” to the young girl in the family, someone who transitioned from being an outside observer to someone who cared for the young girl. 

That led the writer to remember the woman who came into her life when she was incarcerated in a youth facility.  The woman’s monthly visit included taking her to a restaurant where they would talk about her future.  The woman encouraged the teenager to apply to colleges, which the teenager did.  That teenager is now a writer, thanks to the woman who believed in her.

What did these big sisters actually do?  We’ve all heard stories of philanthropists who gave scholarships and/or money to rescue worthy young women and men, but that wasn’t what happened in these cases.  What these mentors did was “witness” the difficult lives of the two girls, not from a safe distance, but from close range.  In that way, the mentors helped the girls accept that their lives had value and dignity. 

Within hours of reading the various articles in the Sunday Times, I’d already forgotten much of what I read.  But I know the article about the two girls, one in Appalachia and another who became a writer, will stay with me, even haunt me, as I wonder who among the people I meet needs me to believe in them.