Somewhere between the mystery of it all and thanksgiving for cool relief, Thomas was besieged by the volume and incredible speed of the rising water. As crisp grass and dry soil softened and bloated the sloping hills, things began to float. Then bob, then swirl, then escape. Literally within minutes the river swelled and surged over the banks. And Thomas—young Thomas—panicked his way through the gloomy undertow on a desperate retrieval mission.
When I arrived long after the flood, Thomas was rolled in a ball on a dry rock slate, weeping. He had been a severe victim of the storm. As is usually the case for the forgotten few—the forgotten too-many—absent of both “home” and shelter. But his absence of everything caught me off guard. Every single thing. No backpack? No sleeping bag? So few items to maintain and save? Items so at-hand. As rapid as it was, it was not as though he was struck by a tidal wave. How? How did the boy who had so little now have nothing?
I was eager to ask. But I was not sure how to do it without sounding condescending. So, I just sat beside him. He wept and I just sat. For a long, long time. No words. Just the unnerving sense that there was far more to his tears than I knew.
“We can get stuff, new stuff, better stuff…whatever you need,” I babbled.
“Maybe this is a good time to try another route. Find you a place,” I continued, committed to the exhausting philosophy that long-term success in guiding young, severely broken lives into healthy adulthoods best, and almost always, starts with trust. Then moves to action. No matter how long that takes. The “absolute” I have indoctrinated myself with, and committed to, for better or worse.
But he heard none of it. He was not purposely ignoring me. Just crying so intensely that he literally could not hear me. So I waited while he sobbed, oblivious of my presence or the passing of time. My fierce curiosity and eagerness to intervene begrudgingly gave way to the better judgment of allowing him his time. His grief. His desperation.
Sirens echoed in and out of earshot forever as we sat side by side in silence. The awkward sounds of others getting help, others mattering, others inconvenienced.
Finally a long shaky sigh.
“My sister. My, my….”
Then more tears. More time. And several more sirens clearing their throats in the distance—heard and not seen. Everyone else getting fixed up.
“My sister was 14 when she left. Now how will I remember her? How will I find her?”
Thomas carried her picture in his fanny pack. She was two years younger than Thomas, but escaped their abusive home a year earlier than he did.
While the waters gobbled up all of his belongings, Thomas sacrificed it all for a search-and-rescue mission through the mire. Desperate for the eight-inch sack that housed the image of his sister.
His grief was shocking. His response was on par with that of a death, rather than the loss of a photograph. His heart broke open and his grieving words dribbled out.
“I was in the park. Waiting, just waiting! I should have been there! I should have been there!”
The critical history, in short, was this: while Thomas was waiting out his father’s rabid drunkenness—waiting for it to submit to a state of unconsciousness—his sister hit the unavoidable wall that comes with the fatigue of chronic abuse. She left a picture on Thomas’s bed as she snuck away. On the back of it she wrote:
I’ll die here. One day come and find me. I love you.
“How will I remember her? How will I find her? How…how…how…,” his weak body collapsed and he sprawled back, arched along the shiny rock face.
Who are the homeless?
Why are they like that?
Why don’t they just go home? Or go somewhere else?
They’re pathetic.
They’re ruining the city.
Delinquents. Lazy. Troublemakers.
Hideous.
After all of these years I have heard everything. Every question, every assertion, every concern, every query, every self-righteous and self-absorbed commentary. On the streets, in office buildings, at luncheons in church basements. But stuck in the moment, sitting beside soaking, stinking, exhausted, torn-apart, magnificent Thomas, all I wanted to do was hunt down every person I had ever heard spout out their uncompassionate ignorance and scream into their faces. Scream them away.
It happens often. And usually lasts until I bump into my own hypocrisy. When God allows it to drop-kick me off my feet. When I remember the guy on the crammed subway who bugged me by flopping around fast asleep in his seat. The girl at the convenience store I thought was kind of dopey because she was taking too long counting my change. The well-dressed kids bumming smokes outside the corner store that I shake my head at. Me. Me indeed. Me not embracing the very song I sing whenever I am asked about those I know on the street:
EVERY PERSON HAS THEIR OWN STORY.
To see muddy, messed-up Thomas sitting curbside, drinking from dented pop cans left half-full in trash bins, the quickest assumption made is that “he’s a problem.” He looks like a problem. Smells like a problem. For sure, he and all those like him are a problematic black eye on tourism. A problem for store owners, city council, family restaurants and fancy hotels. Some think he’s the mayor’s problem. Some think he’s the police’s problem. Provincial problem. Federal problem. Maybe he was the liquor store’s problem? The next-door neighbour who looked the other way’s problem? The teacher who didn’t report the obvious bruises’ problem? The downsizing employer who laid off his dad’s problem? The hospital that couldn’t cure his sick mom’s problem? The church at the end of his street’s problem? Messy, messed-up Thomas was the poster boy for pass-the-buck finger-pointing from every direction. He just thought he was a kid tired of getting beat up in his kitchen. Until he left. Then people made sure he knew what he really was. Not sure of whose. But sure of what.
A big problem!
But what about his story! His incredible story! It is his. The story of a heart that should be a brick but never hardened. The story of salvaging love and keeping promises. The story of broken bottles, broken limbs and a broken heart. His, his and his. All parts of his story. One of only two things that any of us possess that is truly priceless. One is our time. The other is our story. Each one one-of-a-kind. No less than the sleepy man on public transit, the sweet girl doing her best with simple mathematics or the wealthy teenagers looking for something more. The ones I jump to conclusions over. The good, the bad and the ugly. They all have a story. Their own story.
Only days later, Hurricane Katrina devastated the delta expanses while terrorizing the Northwest Gulf of Mexico and hypnotizing an entire continent. The worst natural disaster on record in the United States of America. Thomas and I watched it on CNN through an electronics store window, alarmed at the pictures and headlines. Unable to hear the reports, aghast at the images, we followed the headers at the top of the screen. Thomas was in tears. Not the same desperate tears of stabbing grief shed days earlier. Thoughtful, quiet tears.
Two days after Katrina’s assault on the deep south, Thomas spotted me coming up from the subway tunnel.
He ran towards me excitedly, “Tim, Tim, I need your help!”
At last! These are the words cherished most by me. Symbols of trust and signs of hope.
I nodded and shrugged my shoulders, “Sure!”
My mind began to race. Which shelter? Which contact? Maybe Evergreen’s Health Centre first? It’s the best. Maybe Covenant House next? A roof, a bed. I was readying my arsenal of help suggestions for baby step number one.
But before I could say a thing, he lifted his hand towards