The observation that one person can never quite know what another is enduring has been vividly true for me this week. In the past few days I have had one-to-one encounters with:

A woman in her late sixties who works night-shift five nights a week, who, with her sister, has given a home to two young children (6 and 10 years old) who had to be forcibly removed from their mother’s home in a city several hundred kilometers away.

A man who works two jobs but must also sell his plasma at the blood bank three times a week to make ends meet. 

A woman whose son, 3 years ago, ended his own life at 15-years-old after having spent a good day with his family and gave no hint of the pain he was apparently enduring.

A woman who moved five hundred miles away from her husband to keep herself and her two young children safe.

A teenager who watched both his father and an uncle killed in a violent inner-city exchange of fire – who then divulged when I asked him that he himself “always carries” a weapon.

A teenager who revealed that every time he leaves his house he takes all his valuables and papers with him just in case he’s told by a relative he can’t come back.