Today is a Sunday and with everyone home, my husband and I made a big breakfast. As we sat around the table with our children, passing pancakes and sausages, orange slices, and yogurt, I felt the weight of grief that bubbles up sometimes. It begins with a lump in my throat and a sob that lingers in my chest, stubbornly refusing to move.

The grief is obviously connected to years of hunger and food insecurity, but it’s more than that.

I carry around, in my heart, the image of the little girl I was. She is thin, with short hair and clothes that are too big or too small and totally out of fashion.

The hardest part of carrying her around is not her sadness, but the look on her face. In these visions, at these moments when the grief bubbles up, I see her looking not sad but confused. Confused about why she can see a world that is full of food and other riches, but she has to go hungry.

She can see a world full of people that experience joy and love every day, yet she is alone and scared of the people that are closest to her. She just doesn’t understand and I have never found the words to explain it to her.

The best I can do is to ensure that it stops with me.

I understood, as a teenager, that the reason for this was primarily fear of rejection. Never short on hubris or words I have attempted many times, with varying degrees of success, to open their eyes to the fact that they hold the power to end their own pain, and the pain of others, by reaching out to them. By turning toward people and sharing their fears and passions we create connections that heal old wounds and repair burnt bridges. I explain, fruitlessly, that by sharing our fears and passions we open the door to others to do the same, bolstering them by our courage.

What age has finally granted me is the knowledge that reaching out to others when one is afraid requires a profound amount of courage that most people cannot summon. And, that when a person (of any age) can and does summon the courage, one must act to recognize it for the bravery it is, no matter the outcome.

Vulnerability is so courageous when it comes from someone who has been hurt. We have all been hurt.