Kevin Taylor wrote a brilliant little piece on the state of affairs for the homeless in our fair city, especially on how things have changed from a year ago.
On that note, the issue also had this article, that touches on why homeless persons are hard to count:
People that are by definition the poorest of the poor, the cast out, those that didn't fit into any mold--that most of society thumbs their nose to--well if I were in their shoes I probably would have some qualms about standing up to be counted as well. Goes against the whole nature of the thing. But that's neither here nor there.
Kevin put my picture next to a quote, about how Gary Hanson's death was the first that affected me personally. It wasn't the best picture, but that again, neither here nor there.
For the next couple of days I was the talk of the House of Charity--everyone had read the article, everyone had something they rib me about, everyone could smile and joke about the 'movie star', or the 'celebrity'.
One lady took a half dozen of the periodicals, folded them back, and arranged them on our bookshelf so there was an embarassing string of six me's all in a row smiling awkwardly.
Then she made me sign them.
In all the hubbub about the new famous guy around, there were a few good questions.
"Who was that guy in the article?"
"Was he around much?"
"When did he die?"
Gary died in late January last year, from exposure, or foul play--as the article points out, they're not really sure. When Kevin was interviewing us about him, we honestly didn't have a lot to say. We didn't know a lot about him. Someone claimed to have heard a story that he played for the Detroit Lions. Most just knew him as one of those guys that had pretty much "always been around."
But Kevin Taylor's article wanted to do more than that. Gary's death was in a string, three homeless that had passed in a short time, one murder, one from exposure, one (Gary's) that we weren't really sure. He was trying to see how things had changed--if they had--and how our population was doing as a result. The best we could say (and Kendra said it) was that most of the well-known faces that were trying to get into housing last year did.
There had been some that we'd lost early in the year due to violence, and one man that was struck by a car just recently. But until last Saturday night, we hadn't lost anyone to exposure.
Sunday morning it was all anyone could talk about, and Sunday evening we still didn't know who it was. Waiting to see who didn't show up that night wasn't the best way to find out--and everyone did. Thinking about who we'd directed elsewhere on Saturday night (this time of year we're always full, and have a stand-by list for beds for when some don't show up for them, and when we fill those, guys go elsewhere) didn't help.
Knowing that one of the things that makes life so beautiful is that it ends doesn't help much either. Knowing that there's an urgency to living because we ought not count on tomorrow doesn't do it.
Knowing that if we can connect the striving to bring together the abstract notions of truth and beauty and justice with our day to day complacency necessary to be content with what may come gets closer to it.
It might be that there's a lady at the House of Charity that has suffered through so many of life's injustices that still can take joy in me getting my picture in the paper.
Or a man that suffers through mood swings pushing him to both extremes as result of his medication that takes the time to congratulate me on my future career (the picture said I'm headed to medical school).
Maybe it's that Gary himself was never worried. That he always had a smile for us in the evening. That he and the man that froze to death on Saturday night both had their battles to fight, but were always respectful.
It might be that often I feel if I had half the courage of some of our patrons (and staff) I don't know what I couldn't do.
That when I make my complaints, it might be a better plan to realize that the gifts I've been given far outweigh any sort of merit.
That according to some folk wisdom, if we have a bank account, a car, and some change in a dish at home, we're in the top 10% of wealth in the world.
That higher income brackets don't make for necessarily better people. Just people with more opportunity. And with opportunity comes responsibility. To those whom much is given, much is expected. Our president's wife said that.
If there's any way to honor those that have passed, those that have made mountains out of their molehills, those that had a few grains of sand to the beach of my own resources (and I'm an Americorps Volunteer), its sure as hell not to let an economic downturn dissuade us from pursuing justice. From making those abstract pursuits of truth, of beauty, of justice--making them concrete. Every day.
For Gary. For Bud. For everyone that has gone before, for those that have had an impact on us, for those whom we knew only from a distance, for those that have been forgotten already.
And for us.
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