Review by Gail Gonzales
| Monday, March 10, 2014
Each night, approximately forty
thousand children lay down their heads on pillows in homeless shelters
throughout New York City. This statistic only accounts for children
who are actually in shelters; it does not include the many children
who have no permanent home and end up sleeping on floors, in cars or on the
streets. These children are part of the 1.2 million homeless children in
the U.S. today __ the highest number since the Great Depression. If no one
intervenes to help, the burden of homelessness will be carried by these
children throughout their lives.
An Invisible Thread
is the story of Lara Schroff, a busy sales exec who, while rushing through
busy midtown Manhattan one day, felt pulled by “an invisible thread” toward
a boy who was panhandling on the sidewalk. Her decision to stop and talk
with him changed both of their lives forever.
Maurice is an eleven-year old who
panhandles on a busy corner of 56th street. He has been skipping
school and begging for money to buy food. At home, the refrigerator only
holds Coke and baking sold because the people who are supposed to care for
him are junkies. Laura tells him she will not give him money, but she
offers to by him lunch. They go to McDonald’s, Maurice careful of this
stranger offering him food and Laura not exactly sure why she offered but
that meal is followed by another, and another, until meeting for lunch
becomes a daily ritual. Eventually, Laura and Maurice’s lunch at McDonald’s
leads to a strong friendship that will span more than thirty years.
For both of them, the relationship
brings more change – both challenging and joyful – than either had
suspected. Laura helps Maurice in school, teaches him basic things about
life that we all take for granted but no one had ever shown him,and by her
constancy lets him know that adults can be dependable and trustworthy. In
return he teaches her compassion, the power of resilience, and what it
means to feel unconditional love. The story traces their thirty-plus-year
journey, including the time he asked her to please pack his lunch in a
brown paper bag so that the kids at school know that someone loves him
enough to make him lunch,
While reading this book, I felt such
gratitude for everything that I take for granted. My heart completely broke
when I read how Maurice never had a Christmas. His response to Laura after
spending his first Christmas at her apartment: “ Thank you for making my
Christmas so nice. Kids like me – we know everything that’s going on out
there. We see it on TV. But we’re always on the outside looking in. We know
about stuff like Christmas but we know we can never have it for ourselves,
so we don’t think about it.”
We all hold the power to change
someone’s life. Whether it s a kind smile for a stranger or a warm hug for
an old friend. You never know when the smallest act of kindness can make
the biggest difference. Try it out today. The life you change might just be
your own.
Simon & Schuster -US$15.99
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