I did send help. I sent you.

As a mother and an educator, I have come to believe that children possess a simplicity so pure, so unfettered, so raw that it has the power to startle our souls awake.

Driving home from an epic grocery shop, Olivia, six years old and a newly-minted reader, noticed a man standing on the grassy bank at the intersection of San Vicente and La Cienega holding up a tattered piece of cardboard asking for shelter. “Where does he sleep?” she asked Andrew, my husband.

“Great question,” he responded, and trying to turn it into a teachable moment launched into an explanation of the tragic epidemic of homelessness in Los Angeles and the solutions like prop HHH and the shelter system downtown. “So, why can’t we build him a shelter?” she asked the question again, this time with a greater sense of urgency. Andrew, pivoted, realizing the nuanced explanation of propositions were over her head. “Daddy, she said again. “He needs shelter. Why can’t we build it?”

His first approach was logistical. “Where would we build it? What materials would we use? How would we make the shelter safe?” Olivia countered: “We would build it behind our house. We can get wood from the hardware store like you did for my bunk bed. We can put a lock on it, or a sign, or both.” He hesitated, trying to make sense of it himself, she sensed it, and asserted, “See, we can build him a shelter.”

His second approach returned to the bigger picture. “Homelessness is really a complicated issue in our city. Thousands and thousands of people need shelters. There are shelters in our city where he can go to sleep tonight. Plus, shelter is only part of the issue. There is medicine, food, employment, hygiene.” Again, Olivia countered, “He doesn’t know how to find those other shelters. He doesn’t want those shelters. Ours would be better. You’re a good builder and so is me. It could be like an enormous fort. I’ll bring my extra pillow.”

For a single moment, the belief transferred from daughter to father, that it really was that simple.

His third approach was emotional. His eyes teary, he knelt down, drew her close, and he told her what a kind heart she had. “I wish we could, Livi. I wish it was that simple.” Her lip quivered; she touched his face. “But why can’t we, Daddy? Why can’t we build him a shelter?”

There was a pause, a slow silence, and the question hung in the air, heavy with hope. For a single moment, the belief transferred from daughter to father, that it really was that simple, that we could just build a single shelter for a single man. “It’s true,” he said, “why can’t we?” And in that moment, a whole world was reimagined, a whole world saved.

In the end, though, we did not build the shelter. We convinced Olivia to bring dinner instead. She packed it with her older sister Lucy — challah sandwiches with extra jelly and no crust, goldfish because everyone likes them, a perfectly-ripe banana, crunchy carrots, a yogurt drink, six napkins, an icy water, and a handwritten note with rainbow stickers. And off they went into the night to find the man who needed shelter but would get dinner instead.

“His name was David,” Olivia reported when she returned. “He did a handshake. He had a happy smile and a backpack like me.”

Lucy, slightly older, reassured her, “David had nice shoes and a cozy coat. He didn’t look cold. Remember what he said, Livi? Remember? He said ‘God bless you both.’ It means the same as I love you. Remember Livi?”

That night, when I put Olivia to bed, I stayed with her and watched her drift to sleep. Eyes closed, half dreaming, she reached for my hand. “Mama,” she murmured, “don’t worry, David is going to sleep in the church tonight. He’ll sleep in the church. You know, the one on the corner on the way to school. I’m definite about it. He’ll sleep in the church.”

I drive by that church twice a day. Each time I think about David who isn’t there, who isn’t sleeping safely inside this church or any other, who isn’t sleeping in the shelter we never built and who doesn’t live in Olivia’s world but the real one that isn’t kind, in an America that isn’t his and maybe never was.

I drive by that church twice a day, and I think of Olivia, and wonder how I can, when a situation like this arises again, both protect her and empower her? How can I help her hold on to her stubborn empathy and turn it to restorative action? So, on one drive home from school months later, with the church in my rearview mirror, I tell her that oft-repeated story Rabbi Wolpe tells of a man who once stood before God, his heart breaking from the pain and injustice in the world. “‘Dear God,’ he cried out, ‘look at all the suffering, the anguish and distress in the world. Why don’t you send help?’ God responded, ‘I did send help. I sent you.’”

“So when should we start?” She asks, without missing a beat, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror. “When can we build the shelter for David?”