[ Monday, May 23, 2005 ]
* Note : Some names changed to protect both innocent and guilty
The conference was over. Most of the participants had gone home, so I was left alone in the hotel in this city - a large city in an English speaking country. My own flight would not depart until the next day. I decided to spend the afternoon downtown, hoping to catch an art gallery or a museum.
However, when I arrived, I realised it was a public holiday. The streets were relatively empty, although here and there pockets of tourists and long-weekend shoppers weaved through the chilly dusty wind.
And the homeless. I saw her sitting outside a window near a closed railway station. An old old lady, a native. I smiled and walked on by... However, soon I needed to use a washroom. This meant walking back past the old lady. As I passed, she caught my eye and beckoned for me to come over. I nodded a 'friendly' nod and walked past, back to the place where I had seen a public washroom.
The toilet was shut, however. I began to search the town, avoiding the place where the old lady sat. However, most of the shops were shut. I thought of asking the old lady where to find a washroom. Surely, of all people, a homeless person should know. Eventually I promised God that if I found a washroom, I would go back and talk to the old lady. And I did.
At first I couldn't see her. I prayed "God, I'm sorry, I'm too late", secretly glad I was off the hook. But when I walked a little further, there she was. I approached here and asked her name. Harriet. She asked for help. I asked what kind of help she needed, and she told me she was hungry. So I offered to buy her food. It's not my policy to give money to beggars - many are alcoholic, after all. But the old old lady seemed happy to accept food, so after she had placed her order, I searched for a restaurant where I could fulfil it.
About 15 minutes later I returned, half expecting her to already have left. But she was still there, where she had been before. Where I found out later she had spent the entire night, morning and afternoon until I came. She gratefully accepted the footlong sub and the tea. "Not enough sugar" but she drank it anyway. And, in response to my prodding, told me some small fragments of her story.
Her two sons had passed away. She had tattoos on her hand : "I love..." some name I couldn't make out, but she had no family, she said. She pointed at the church across the street. "I asked them to help me but they turned me away". I wondered why the church would not help, and tried to ignore the odd stares people gave as they saw us sitting there. It was hard to make out the words she was saying.
She told me that she wanted to go to Manson*. I struggled to read the public transport map, forgetting to be thankful that I had met her near a railway station. How could she get to bus number 1* from where we were? Should we go by taxi? Manson seemed very far from my hotel - although not as far as the 40km Harriet had mentioned.
Eventually I decided to take a risk. There was a road nearby that bus 1* passed through. Perhaps... please God... it would stop there too. I explained the plan to the old old lady. She agreed, and painfully rose from the place she had lived for the previous 24 hours. Slowly we walked. It must have taken 20 minutes to move 1 block. The cold wind bit at times and made the lady stop until it passed. Eventually, after a wrong turn that doubled the distance, we found the bus shelter. We didn't talk much, but she gave me her address in case I decided to write.
Just before our bus arrived, a man approached us looking for a cigarette. He looked me in the eye for a few seconds, then said "Naah, I can tell you don't smoke". He then addressed Harriet by name, begging her for a cigarette. She didn't have any. He then asked me where I was going, and I said I was helping Harriet get to Manson.
"Manson! Why are you going to Manson?" he asked Harriet. "You told me you were going to de-tox". So Harriet was an alcoholic. Is that what had killed her sons? I didn't know what to say - should I encourage her to go to detox? Tell her drinking is no good? Her bus arrived less than a minute later, so I helped her to board it.
The man told me his name, but I quickly forgot it. "Thanks for looking after my street-sister" he said, and shook my hand. So he, too, was homeless. It seemed they formed a real community. Harriet asked me if I would be there again tomorrow. I told her my plane was leaving. To this day I am not sure if she realises that I came from a different country from her.
When I looked around, the man whose name I forgot was not there.
I walked quickly along the street. The tourists and shoppers were far fewer in number now. Instead, I began to recognise the street people. The homeless. Some were well-dressed, some less so. One here asleep on a bench, one pushing a trolley of his possessions, one pushing his wheelchair-bound friend across the street.
I met one more before I boarded my train. Richard* asked me for some money for coffee, and assured me he was genuine. When I offered to take him to starbucks, he said that if I gave him a small amount of money he could get soup from the salvation army in the east of the city. He chatted with me as we walked towards the train station, telling me he had bipolar disorder. He said he was homeless because of his mother was angry with him. Angry because of his lifestyle - which he didn't want to discuss. Eventually, he reached his destination, a hotel, and we parted ways.
I asked him what help he gets from the government. He receives a disabled pension - barely enough to live on, but still something I guess. I said there were homeless shelters he could go to, but... "it's very seedy there" he said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, it's full of homeless people." drunk natives, he said, and other people who had nowhere to go. I could understand why that would make a homeless shelter less than pleasant. Could anyone open a 4 star homeless shelter though? How could such a place (I have never visited one) be made less "seedy"?
It only struck me later that the hotel he had entered was more likely to have pubs than salvation army soup kitchens - and that he had been walking west with me, not east. Was his story about bipolar disorder just a story? Or was his "lifestyle" an addiction to alcohol?
I cried for him as I prayed for him in my hotel room.
I prayed and told God that the church was not helping, that She had turned the old old woman away. I was reminded of the salvation army soup kitchen, that gave people a simple meal for a small small payment.
I told Him I hoped I had done at least a little good, and reminded Him that there was still so much to do, that there were still so many people trapped in the darkness of the cold city night. And of their circumstances. And of their pain. And I wish there was more that could be done.
I don't know what will go through my head tonight as I lie in my warm hotel room. Will I pray and cry for Harriet and Richard and the man whose name I forgot? Or feel sad for a city of lost people? Or feel guilt that I have it so good and do so little? Or feel fear lest, one day, alcoholism slips its tentacles down my throat, around my heart, and destroy my life and family and home?
God have mercy on my soul.
Mike [8:35 PM]
