Lately I’ve found myself receiving numerous cries for comfort from my friends. They are cries of anxiety, grief, depression, loneliness, and suffering. As I struggle to respond to them, I am reminded once again that nothing is harder—and yet nothing is easier—than caring for someone in pain.

On Sept. 1, I landed at Hong Kong International Airport after a 15-hour flight, looking forward to a hot shower and a dim sum dinner. Instead, I got stuck there for six hours. 

Among all the immigration policies that the Trump administration has implemented, one that’s most frustrating to immigration lawyers and judges is the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP), also known as the “Remain in Mexico” program. Under MPP, the government is no longer allowing asylum-seekers from Spanish-speaking countries to wait for their court hearings in the United States but is instead sending them to border cities in Mexico for the duration of their immigration proceedings.

Last week, I wrote about two individuals in their 60s, Mary and Michael, on their hunt for housing. With their age and health problems, it’s not easy for them to find housing with their subsidized housing vouchers, especially in an expensive city such as Los Angeles. Only about half of the people in the Section 8 program in Los Angeles manage to sign a lease. The other half lose their vouchers because they don’t find a place to stay within the required time. 

Carlos Benjamin Dubon-Moro says that when someone shot his brother multiple times, he had no idea if those bullets were meant for him or if it was a random act of violence. The 27-year-old Guatemalan father of three said he had been receiving threats after campaigning for a political candidate before the shooting. That’s the problem in Guatemala, he told me: You just never know—and you better get out before you find out.

A few weeks ago, I sat at the Santa Monica Public Library with two homeless individuals in their 60s as they searched online for housing. There was Mary, 64, whom I wrote about in January in a story about homeless women. Sitting next to her was her new friend Michael, 62, and his 6-year-old German shepherd service dog, Presley.

Until recently, Mary lived at Samoshel, a transitional shelter for the homeless in Santa Monica, for almost eight months. Michael has been there for three years.

A while ago, while working on a story about the rise of anti-Semitism in the United States, I met up with Rabbi Noah Farkas at Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Los Angeles. There in his office, Farkas told me a story that I cannot ever forget.