Every Human Has an "Invisible"
We miss looking at the promise of an immature youth. We dismiss the hurting unemployed. We ignore the aged.
In so many instances, we take people for granted. Especially those who appear useless, sick, or disabled by trauma.
We can often miss the potential for healing and wholeness of these people.
Each of us is capable of committing this bias or mistake. To not see the "invisible" in the other.
I read of a poor, old woman who died in a nursing home. Among the things she left was a poem she wrote.
She expressed her "invisible" in her poem:
"What do you see, nurses, what do you see?
What are you thinking when you're looking at me?
A crabby old woman not very wise,
Uncertain of habit with faraway eyes.
I'm a small child of 10 with a mother and father,
Brothers and sisters who love one another,
A bride in her 20s - my heart gives a leap,
Remembering the vow that I promised to keep.
A woman of 30, my young now grow fast,
Bound to each other with ties that should last.
At 40, my sons have grown and have gone,
But my man is beside me, to see I don't mourn.
At 50, once more babies play around my knees;
Again we know children, my husband and me.
I'm an old woman now and nature is cruel;
' Tis her jest to make old age like a fool.
The body it crumbles, grace and vigor depart;
There is now a stone where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass, a young girl still dwells,
And now and again my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys, and I remember the pains;
And I'm loving and living life over again.
I think of the years all too few - gone too fast,
And accept the stark fact that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, nurses, open and see
Not a crabbed old woman; look closer - see me."
It's exactly what can happen in therapy. Persons are seen, not as they appear. But as they really were and are.
Old or young, poor or rich. Whatever color or station in life, there is an "invisible" treasure in every one of us.