Homeless by Choice

Homelessness is a problem in this country. Especially, during these difficult economic times. Homes are being for closed on in record numbers. Families are clearing out their spare bedrooms to make room for a less fortunate member. People needing fuel assistance, food stamps or welfare is on the rise. Unemployment lines snake through office buildings and out into corridors as the jobless stand elbow to elbow. As I sit in my warm home with the smell of homemade chili wafting into my writing nook I reflect on how lucky our family is. Our house may be a castle in our eyes alone but it is our castle. If I look up in the right corner I see a curl of wallpaper that is begging to be ripped off. Admittedly, we need some work here but we usually opt for food first and then heat. It seems to be the American way of life for most middle class working families. There usually is just enough to get by on and stretched correctly we do okay. The big three, shelter, food and clothing are the only things we absolutely must have to keep body and soul together. How to obtain these usually requires gainful employment.

So, it is at this time of year when the winds pick up and I am forced to dress in layers that I worry about the homeless people. I feel sad for them and usually will dig in and let a few bucks slip into a can now and then. Boston is a tough city to ride through. We can't avoid it either, due to imperative doctor's appointments. Once, many years ago during one such trip one of my little one's asked why there was a big "egg roll" man on the side walk. I couldn't understand what he meant until I saw what spot his eyes were glued to. There was a man sleeping on the side walk in the bright noonday sun all rolled up in a large cardboard box. All we could really see of the man was a tuft of hair at one end and battered sneakers at the other. I realized I was choosing not to see and was only forced by the innocence of youthful curiosity. I had to decide how to answer him. Of course, truthfully but how much truth? Who's truth, mine or maybe the egg roll man's truth. I knew that man could be my uncle. The uncle no one ever really talked about anymore. The last surviving brother of my deceased father and his older twin brothers.

I gave him the whole truth. My truth and my uncle's truth the way I heard and witnessed it to be. Especially, since this truth was learned through my own youthful eyes and evolved very slowly over many years. I explained that some people have it hard and they don't have homes. Some people are sick and they don't have family to help them and they may end up on the street. It was hard to see my son's expression change from an inquisitive searching look to a sad and bewildered expression. "How can other people not help them, mom? "Why can't we help them"? So, we road on and this time we looked at the sidewalks together. I showed him that there are many people that need help and we can only help a little by donating what we can. Then I told him that some people are homeless by choice. Incredulous, would best describe his newest countenance. "Mom, how can a person want to live in a box and not a house"?

I often wondered that myself about my uncle as I became an adult. "Honey, it's kind of hard to explain but I will try by telling you about my uncle" I said. So, I did tell him and it was an uncomfortable conversation at first but then when memories started to flood me it became easier. I remember being very small when my uncle had a regular life just like ours. He worked, had a wife, two kids and was a person who really was fun and interesting. The last memory I had of him when he still had his life together was a Thanksgiving celebration at our house. My father took out the slide projector and we watched all the old slides on a big white pull down screen. We had so much fun and because our family is huge we must have watched two hours of slides. My uncle and his family were part of our family when I was little. When that all changed I wasn't very sure.

The memories of my uncle began again but a long stretch of time went by before they did. My parents never spoke of extended family troubles in front of us. I had no idea my uncle had suffered some type of blast as a fireman in New Bedford, Ma. After that he was unable to work. Even though his story had been in the newspaper I don't remember a bit of it. Perhaps, I was too busy watching "The Electric Company, or "Zoom" after dinner. Mostly I think children were protected back then. We didn't see our aunt anymore or our cousins that belonged with this uncle. Only once in awhile our uncle came over alone and my dad would talk with him outside. Once, I remember my older siblings talking openly with my mom about dad getting my uncle an apartment downtown. I didn't know up until then that he no longer lived with my aunt and cousins. It wasn't long before I witnessed mom and dad angry and not hiding it from us. What I gathered was that my uncle bolted and escaped from the apartment and no one knew where he was. Mom was not happy that dad had paid the last months rent and the security deposit. It's not that she didn't know my father had helped my uncle but she was upset that my father had been taken advantage of.

As years went by it finally registered in my brain that my uncle really didn't live anywhere concrete. I would hear that he was living in Brockton for a few months every winter. Relief would sweep over me because I knew he wasn't out there freezing. One winter dad packed some of us up to go visit but mom stayed home. Imagine my surprise to find out that my uncle's winter home was the Brockton Veterans Hospital. The day we visited he was recovering from having some teeth worked on. His lips were kind of smashed up and I asked him what happened. He told me he had tripped on the ice and kissed the curbing and then he laughed. I wondered why my dad wasn't laughing too. I decided not to laugh at that point because I couldn't figure out what was going on. In the spring, he bolted from the V.A. Hospital like a bear coming out of hibernation. Then, he would visit us once a month and he always seemed so happy. He was funny and told stories that would make us kids laugh around the dinner table. Mom always set her lips in a thin tight line during these meals. When desert was served my dad and uncle would take it outside and they would talk for a long time. Somewhere along the line I learned that we were to, "leave them be".

My dad always had such firm footing in his Catholic beliefs. He prayed the rosary often and encouraged us to always hit our knees when someone was hurt or sick. I know my dad was trying to get his brother to give himself over to God again and be delivered. Delivered from what I didn't know for a long time. At the end of the evening my dad would come in and tell mom that he was giving uncle a ride to the bus stop. It was summertime and I knew my uncle did not like to live indoors. I fancied him a "hobo" hopping a train and having adventures. My naivete ended about that when I was twelve. My uncle arrived for his monthly visit and dad was not home yet. I opened the door and began to welcome him in when the firm hand of mom pushed passed me. She held the door closed to my great embarrassment. She then proceeded to tell him that my dad would be home within a half hour. So, with a smile he tipped his hat and headed up the street to buy a pack of smokes. My mother must have seen the look on my face. As only a prepubescent girl can I hollered at my mom for being awful to my uncle. "How could you, mom"? "That wasn't nice". "Why did you do that"? Mom told me that it was my father who instructed her to never let him in if he wasn't home.

Okay, I needed a rewind here because as far as I was concerned we would visit him in Brockton when he was sick. This was a family member that we cared about and I did not understand what my mother was doing. It was 1972 and although I did watch men walk on the moon a few years before I still lived on the dark side of it in many areas. My mother helped illuminate some of the mystery that surrounded my uncle. She explained that my uncle would, "dry out" in the winter and that's why he would be in the V.A. Hospital. She further explained that he was an alcoholic and went in to the hospital when the months were cold. He accepted their treatment and had his medical problems addressed at those times. They would often offer to get him into a group home. He did live in a few but inevitably always chose to shed people like a snake sheds it's skin. When he did leave often times he took other people's property. I began to understand that although my father loved his brother he couldn't trust him. My father had to set some clear boundaries in regards to how we all interacted with his youngest brother. My dad had to be home when my uncle came once a month for his check.

I ascertained that the reason for my uncle's monthly visit was solely to pick up his pension or government check. That bulb went on all by itself for me and with that knowledge came sadness for my father. I looked back on all of the years my dad spent trying to live out his faith by never turning his back on his brother. His older twin brothers who had been still living at the time shunned their youngest sibling. I know nothing of their stories because they had zippered bindings long before they were invented. They must have carried their own burdens the best way they knew how. That's all anyone can ever do. Irony of all ironies my alcoholic homeless uncle was the last brother standing. My mother said it was because he was "pickled". She is still sharp witted and doesn't miss a punch line. Her lingering anger however was evident when we were not told of my uncle's passing a few years ago. I'm sure my uncle didn't have many people in attendance at the service. He only had his daughter left as his son had died of cancer a long time before.

My mother's anger welled up out of the frustration she felt for my father. He had been unsuccessful in his efforts to nurture roots in my uncle. She watched my father cry and pray and sow seeds like crazy around that man. In the end it was all for naught. Twenty eight years ago my father lay on his death bed in Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He was dying from aplastic anemia and it took him away from us in three weeks time. Even when he had a breathing tube and was unable to speak he motioned for a pen. He had his wife and ten children around him. He had been slipping in and out of a semi-consciousness. My mother gave him a pen and a pad of paper. She watched as he scribbled, "where's Louie"? My mom told him my eldest brother had made some phone calls and they were trying to find him. He passed away and most of us were there in the room. I wished I had had the courage to stay but I didn't want to see him go. I was young and I never experienced watching life leave a person and I bolted on him too. I did pray when I took flight that my uncle would show up, that he would make it. I waited in a family room for someone to tell me that he had arrived at last. When my family filed in one by one about a half hour later it was to tell me that someone had left. Sitting around my mother's table later that day we learned that my uncle Louie did indeed make it to the hospital. He was just a half hour too late which fueled my mothers anger even more. I think in some odd way it was anger that got her through the most devastating loss of her life. She guirded herself with it like heavy wet sandbags to hold off the surging tidal wave of grief threatening to suffocate her.

After the death of my father we lost all communication with him. He didn't have a reason to come to our home anymore. His daughter lived in another state as far as we knew. We only knew that she had a lot of burdens of her own to carry. This long lost cousin to us had occasionally kept in contact with my eldest brother. Recently she called him and had made arrangementsthrough his wife to travel here and have dinner with "the girls". I was so intrigued by this stranger that shared our genes and was the daughter of the 'illusive homeless uncle" that I wanted in on this reunion. The experience was something I had not anticipated. My cousin shared a bit of her difficult life journey. She had made it to a place where she was healthy, beautiful and successful. I was proud of her and for her and I wished she lived closer. There was so much left we could share, all of us. There was only one incident during dinner that I was wholly unprepared for. She spoke so softly and it was hard to hear her when she leaned in to tell me something. Our family is large and usually loud at gatherings. I didn't hear what she said at first or maybe my brain just went dark again for an instant. I asked her to repeat herself and she did. I heard her clearly the second time say, "my father died a sober man". In true family style, I bolted right out the door. After a huge panic attack and some sobbing I was able to return to the restaurant. She figured out what happened and why.

On the way home I thought that maybe some seeds get sown and they don't find good soil. Maybe, some seeds lay dormant for years. Like prayers, you think after so long they just get carried off in the wind. Echoing through valleys never quite making it to heaven. Long evaporated tears that were cried over lost souls must seem like fruitless wastes of energy to those left behind. I learned something that night. My fathers prayers were the wind that carried his seeds of faith for the healing of his brother. It didn't matter that he did not live to see it. Somewhere the seeds took hold on some fertile turf and were nourished by tears that were never wasted. My father now is in his Father's castle and my uncle is no longer homeless. I picture them together with my twin uncles knocking around a little white ball. My grandparents sitting on the sidelines speaking in hushed tones as only golf spectators do. No one can stay homeless forever. That's what I told my son so many years ago.