Learning Names at the Edges

I was walking through Bristol city centre when I saw her - an elderly woman covered in scabs, no teeth, asking for change. In our increasingly cashless world, I genuinely had nothing in my pockets. But something compelled me to visit a nearby ATM.

Maybe it was the contrast. I easily spend ten pounds on coffee and cake without thinking, earn a decent professional salary, live in the comfortable bubble of middle-class certainty. Here was someone for whom ten pounds meant the difference between a shorter day of begging and more hours of dignity.

Her name is Debra.

My heart beat a little faster as I approached, and not from exertion. There's something unsettling about these encounters - a recognition that goes both ways. I can see her, but she can also see me. In my professional world, I wear masks that look like care but are really system performance. Measured responses. Appropriate boundaries. Bureaucratic compassion.

In moments like this, I feel revealed.

Debra told me about her morning in a roach-infested squat, showed me the insect bites covering her arms. When I handed her some cash, her toothless smile was completely sincere. Not grateful in the way that makes you uncomfortable, just real. Human recognising human.

Those surviving on society's edges develop a different kind of perception. They have to. Reading people accurately becomes essential for survival, for avoiding abuse, for recognising the difference between genuine connection and performance. Debra could see through whatever professional mask I might have worn - there was no point pretending to be anything other than what I was in that moment.

Ten minutes of conversation. That's all it was. But it shortened her begging day, gave her time to rest, maybe reminded her that her beating heart matters to someone.

We live in cities where we've perfected the art of not seeing. Phones become shields against eye contact. Earbuds create barriers against uncomfortable recognition. We've made ignoring each other into a social skill.

But to accept society in its rawness, we must know the names of those at its edges. The forgotten souls need eye contact, need reminding that they are known and seen.

This isn't about grand gestures or life-changing interventions. It's simpler and harder than that.

Start with eye contact. Nod and smile at everyone - not just people who look like you, not just people in your economic bracket. Build the skill of giving time to someone struggling. If you genuinely can't help, say "unable to help you today, but take care, okay?" If you can sit for a moment, ask their name, how their morning has been. Someone in survival mode will often share that reality more honestly than they'll share their life story.

Sometimes hand over cash if you can. Offer food if that feels right. Don't worry about how it gets used - suffering and survival at that level requires significant numbing. That's not your judgment to make.

When you walk city streets, look up and out. Care about your environment and the fellow humans struggling within it. Notice who society teaches us not to see.

I manage problems professionally forty hours a week, navigating bureaucracies designed more for system maintenance than human dignity. But sitting with Debra reminded me what authentic service feels like - no hoops, no assessments, no case files. Just one person recognising another's fundamental worth.

Her name is Debra. She finds life hard to manage, like many of us do in different ways. The difference is she has to sit in gutters and ask strangers for money. Something has been deeply scarred to reach that point.

Maybe those ten minutes helped her remember she has value beyond what the systems say. Maybe she reminded me that authentic care happens in moments of genuine recognition, not professional performance.

The edges of society aren't abstract concepts. They're populated by people with names, with morning routines in roach-infested squats, with sincere smiles despite everything they've endured.

Learn their names. Make eye contact. Remember that being seen is a basic human need that shouldn't depend on economic status or social acceptability.

We're all just people trying to get through our days with some measure of dignity intact.

What would change if we treated every encounter on city streets as an opportunity for genuine human recognition rather than something to avoid or ignore?