People struggle.

But there is a fictional world that wants us to deny this. In that fiction, everyone has a set of bootstraps connected to some miraculous source that, if simply pulled upon, will lift them from their struggles to the magic of prosperity.

Folks, that’s a Hallmark movie.

When I moved back to Webster City I found some friends who were struggling. One, in particular, had not been raised to go without. Yet, there she was, in a position of struggle. She had a job and a child. But it wasn’t a high-dollar job, so it covered essentials most of the time, but that was it. Her desire to give her child the best childhood was truncated by the sheer lack of money.

Her life was a continual balancing act.

With one meagre paycheck and a heart brimming with love, she struggled.

She struggled until one day, an unexpected bill, a splurge — heck, when you’re struggling the way she did it could have been a carton of milk — she couldn’t pay the rent.

That is when I learned that the Webster City Ministerial Association managed an Ecumenical Human Needs Fund. I went as her support when she asked for help.

There was no grim aspect to this, unless you call watching a friend humble herself before strangers grim.

Instead, she was met with universal understanding. And help.

She made the rent that month.

In this season of Thanksgiving I know that I give thanks for the memory of that day. Her life was lifted by their generosity. And I, because I witnessed their generosity, was lifted with her.

Kindness is such an easy thing, don’t you think? It takes way less energy than, say, being a mean, starchy judge.

I probably haven’t shared this story with most of you, but when I returned from England in the late 1980s — and when I say returned I actually mean deported because the employer who was supposed to hire me there failed to do the paperwork — I returned to the United States nearly penniless. I got a job landscaping with a friend who had an all-woman crew and we had a hysterically wonderful time. It paid enough to help me live.

Right about that time the Henri Matisse retrospective was opening at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and we all decided to go. My Lord, it was joyous.

Outside MOMA, on our way to the train home, a homeless man holding a covered platter asked me for money. “We’ve just gotten some food,” he said, gesturing to the platter. “And we have learned of a place to stay. But we don’t have the money for the train.”

I dug into my pocket for some cash. I think it was $10.

His face lit up. “Oh, thank you,” he said. “Would you like some of our food?”

I shook my head.

“I know what it’s like to be without.”

I handed him the money.

It was almost all that I had at the time.

This community is not the setting for a Hallmark movie.

People struggle.

We can all help.

Jane Curtis is interim editor of the Daily Freeman-Journal. She is a 2024 Iowa Newspaper Association Master Columnist.