Monday, December 24, 2007
When I was 11 years old, there wasn't a lot of reason to pine for a stack of presents piled under a Christmas tree.
My
father had lost his job, as scores did in the mid-1980s oil-industry
bust. With our house in foreclosure, my family packed up the car and
moved to try to make a new start, in hopes of my father finding the
exploration work that suddenly was not in demand.
The everyday
tension was palpable. The small house we rented became the dark spot in
my young life, where each night I feared going to bed because the
inevitable insomnia was draining me. Then one night, close to the
holidays, I overheard my father say that if things continued as they
were much longer, we would be living out of our car.
The next day
I sat in class at Our Lady of the Assumption school in Sacramento, one
of two students there on a financial-need free ride. I can't remember
what the catalyst was — or if there even was one — but suddenly the
tears came pouring out. Every fear I had rushed forth. I felt
embarrassed in front of the classmates I barely knew.
The kindly
teacher, Mrs. Cynthia Knapton, pulled me to the back of the classroom
and softly asked what was wrong. I wept as I spilled all: the poverty,
the loneliness, the ominous words I'd heard my father say the night
before.
She consoled me; I went back to the sleepless house at
the end of the school day. But a couple of days later, when my mother
came to pick me up, she was asked to come into the principal's office.
I was terrified that I'd let loose some awful secret, and would surely
be in trouble at home.
But what was waiting in that office was a beautiful gesture pulled together by Mrs.
Knapton: a box of food for my family, a gently used coat for me, some money for my family to buy Christmas meat.
A
couple of years later, after my father was at a new job, we visited San
Francisco for the day. Frankly, I couldn't understand what was so grand
about Union Square: There were homeless people everywhere. People
literally stepped over a man sitting against Saks Fifth Avenue, his
head hung low and eyes sadly staring into space.
As I trailed
behind my parents, who were waiting for a crosswalk light to change, I
turned to face a man sitting on a low wall, similarly anonymous to the
rush of passers-by.
"Hi," I said to the homeless man. His
downtrodden face turned up, his eyes lit up and teared up, and he
offered an enthusiastic but genuinely surprised "hi" back, as if it had
been years since he'd received a greeting.
I felt incredibly sad, returning to a home that day as that man had none.
Nowadays, I still wonder about society's relationship with those without a place to live.
We
hold holiday food drives and celebrities dish out turkey and stuffing
at soup kitchens, but what about when the cameras aren't clicking?
The holidays are seen as an inspiration to help the less fortunate, but what about the other 11 months of the year?
We
might classify the homeless as drunks or mentally ill, junkies or
simply down and out. Everybody has a different story. But in the end,
is not every person without a home, living out of a shopping cart or
under an overpass, just as human as you or me, just as deserving of our
compassion and respect?
We might say that handouts are bad for
the homeless, as they might use the cash to buy smokes or booze. But
what stops us from buying an extra cup of coffee in the morning and
giving it to the shivering man huddled along the side of the strip mall?
In
fact, what makes us think that helping the homeless is all about
material goods? Introduce yourself. Shake a hand. Talk and listen.
Offer a wave and a smile to the person who may like nothing more than
to be respected as part of the community, but lacks a roof over his
head.
Treating the homeless, those who have fallen on hard luck, with kindness and respect is seasonless.
Because
even Mrs. Knapton wasn't just giving a poor 11-year-old a handout: In
the short time I was in her class, she told a parable one day about a
woman who was afraid to cross the street for fear of getting hit, and
therefore stayed shuttered in her house — safe and secure, but lonely
and missing out on life.
I listened intently, feeling a shred of
hope, and in the two decades since I've run across many streets, taken
lots of chances and embraced life for all its ups and downs.
And that lesson was the greatest gift.
