Have You Seen Luis Velez?

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

It struck him odd that he’d had to come to the home of a blind woman to be seen clearly. At long last.

“Children always feel they are the ones at fault,” she said. “They think they are defective somehow, if everything is not just as it should be. But usually not. If there was a lot of love going on all through that house, I think you would feel it. You would know.”

Empathy is what allows us to live with each other,

Whatever you’re afraid of, turn toward it, not away. Once you’re willing to do that, it loses all its power over you.

I do think some of us have experiences that wake us up—when we see the horror that eventually comes of such judgments, or when we find ourselves on the wrong end of them, and feel how powerful that hate can grow to become. It can shake you to the very core of your being. And here is the thing about experiences that wake you up, Raymond: You try to get back to sleep, but it’s easier said than done. Once you’re awake, you’re awake. Good luck hitting the snooze button, my friend.”

Living long is a gift denied to many, and so it comes with a responsibility to make the most of it. At very least to appreciate it. People gripe about growing older—their aches and pains, how much harder everything is—as if they had forgotten that the alternative is dying young.”

The world is terrible and wonderful at the same time. One doesn’t negate the other, but the wonderful keeps us in the game. It keeps us moving forward.

the world is full of all these men trying to model what it means to be a man, but they don’t truly know. They think it means be tough, feel nothing, betray nothing. And then Luis comes along and decides that his definition of a man is someone who is not afraid to be kind.

the only thing that hurts more than tears shed is tears unshed.”