More Than a System Can Hold - What We Gave Away

There was a time—not so long ago in the long arc of our human story—when care was a communal act.

When someone fell ill, neighbors showed up with broth, with strong hands to carry water, with silence to sit and hold grief.

When a child was born, aunties, cousins, elders gathered around, not just to coo and admire but to support, to guide, to offer hands-on help.

We looked out for one another—not because of policy, not for pay, but because it was the natural rhythm of a village.

It was a rhythm as old as time. Rooted in fire circles, braided in through kinship lines, whispered into lullabies.

Care was a song we sang together. It was what made us human.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, something shifted.

We began handing our care over to systems.

We let governments become the stewards of our elders, our children, our sick and our vulnerable.

This isn’t a blame story.

I want to be clear: I am not judging this shift.

I have needed support. I have stood in welfare lines. I have felt the ache of desperation softened by a cheque in the mail.

And I am deeply grateful for the safety net that was there when I needed it.

But today, I want to speak not from blame, but from remembering.

From reverence.

Because something has been forgotten.

Something sacred.

Something essential to our human fabric.

When care lives in community, it is not abstract.

It is not managed, allocated, or assessed.

It is felt.

It moves through kitchens, through prayer, through touch, through casseroles left quietly at the door.

It is not something we feel entitled to—it is something we remember we are a part of.

A circle.

A web.

When someone shows up for you—not because they’re paid to, but because they know your name, your story, your worth—it awakens something.

It restores a memory: I belong here. I matter.

But systems—no matter how well-meaning—are not built to hold that kind of memory.

They can fund, but they cannot feel.

They can serve, but they cannot see.

They can support, but they do not sit beside you when the bottom falls out.

And when we replace relationship with administration, something erodes.

The heart of help goes missing.

Reciprocity weakens.

Gratitude grows thin, not because we are ungrateful, but because gratitude is born from connection, not transaction.

This is not a personal failure.

It’s a cultural amnesia.

We forgot that care is not just a resource.

It is a rhythm. A sacred responsibility. A deeply human act of mutuality.

And when care is no longer braided through our relationships, we lose more than just warmth.

We lose resilience.

We lose the sense that we are each other’s.

We lose the muscle memory of being held and holding in return.

We become isolated. Proud. Embarrassed to ask.

Or we become dependent. Expecting care to arrive without remembering our part in the circle.

Both responses are symptoms of disconnection.

When government becomes the sole provider of social good, care becomes commodified.

It enters the realm of policy and paperwork.

And while that scaffolding matters—especially for those marginalized by history and harm—it can never replace the soul.

What’s been lost is something sacred: the web of interdependence.

The humbling, holy recognition that I need you and you need me.

That our lives are braided together, and the strength of one is the strength of all.

There are no systems for that.

No hotline, no agency, no budget line that can replicate what happens when neighbors know each other’s names.

When grief is shared.

When joy is multiplied.

When food, hands, songs, and silence are offered freely.

And so I wonder—what would it look like to remember?

Not to reject the system, but to reclaim the soul of care.

To say yes again to being each other’s keepers.

To rebuild kinship in the cracks the institutions cannot fill.

To become, again, the medicine we once were to each other.

We are not meant to do life alone.

Nor to outsource every need to something outside of us.

We are meant to love each other back to life.

It won’t be efficient.

It won’t be easy.

But it will be real.

And it will be worth remembering.

Because when we care for one another—not out of obligation, but from the deep well of shared humanity—we remember who we truly are.

And that is a future worth weaving.