The Other Side of the Train Tracks

  Do we draw an invisible but entirely socially noticeable line when it comes to children on welfare? It seems as if those children are treated differently. Pitied even when you come down to the basics. Families of higher wealth, even the middle class, look down on them. All they see is desperation and misery. Each child has a different story. They are not just the children at the WIC office.

  My family lives on welfare, so that is why I question the attitude of people’s opinion on the lower class. At my house, we have an antennae for the TV set and free wifi from our generous neighbor. In the average household, my house is smaller then usual and the gadgets we don’t own; the hole gaping huge. With the little we own, the freer we are mentally, physically and spiritually released from the burden of things. You would think my little brothers, Isaiah and Levi would miss out of the wonders the world could hold. That maybe they are unfortunate because they do not get to run around in a backyard and watch cable cartoons. An opportunity the population thinks is necessary.

  In the back of our complex there is a train track. The train comes several times a day, making loud but unusually soothing sounds. It is the sounds my brothers perk up at to and beg to watch it. The tracks are literally maybe ten feet away, a fence keeping us between the other sides, where fancy houses stay to rest. The fascination in their eyes! They get to view this massive machine that holds mystery and something they yet cannot grasp. Most children would not view such a wonder. The people of the middle class would probably not even be down our street. America holds sympathy for children like Isaiah and Levi, my genius brothers, but these two boys hold something in their minds that other little children will never get to experience.

  Having less money does not change the children into something inhumane. It is how you look at your surroundings and find God’s beauty in it. While the children with more money are glued to the TV, soaking up Thomas the Train’s strange human face, my brothers are going on walks and crossing the railroad, eagerness in their faces. We look like we have less, when really we have more. There is more connection in my family then I’ve ever felt, in any other situation we have been in. Without all the extra things in life that do not really matter, we can actually be. Isaiah’s is absorbed into a book that isn’t on a tablet while Levi is pretending to be a super hero, mask and cape accessorized. These are moments I cannot get back. These are moment the boys will always remember and love. They won’t remember the TV shows or the types of clothes they wore, but they will remember the people they were with and the fascination they found, down to the form; of life.