Stories: Part Two

After Jay's death, Ono was devastated; she had no idea what had happened to Jay, and she assumed that he'd abandoned her deliberately. Even though it hadn't been intentional, Ono went into a tailspin and began to drink heavily (vodka was her drink of choice) and usually could be found at the park sitting outside the restrooms on the southern side of the park. While we typically only gave out food to people who lined up at the picnic tables in the NE corner of the park, we tried to make sure someone took a plate down to her and either give it to her or just leave it for her if she'd passed out. She eventually disappeared and we heard that she'd passed away, I imagine due to cirrhosis of the liver, based on how much she was drinking every day, usually at least a bottle of vodka or so.

Then there was Francisco. He was a Hispanic gentleman and could have been anywhere from his 40's into the 60's. His English was difficult to understand because he had a speech impediment. Anyone able to get past that impediment would have been as amazed as I was to discover that he routinely attended free lectures on various subjects given on the USC campus and was actually pretty intelligent and quite competent. He would often stay late after most everyone else had left, and I had a lot of interesting conversations with him. He somehow contracted the Nile virus and was hospitalized for a number of weeks; apparently he was in the very small percentage of those infected who suffered severe symptoms. He was eventually discharged, and he passed on with a few months, presumably from complications associated with the Nile virus. 

Fernando was someone who died living outside as a consequence of his hoarding books. He had two storage units full of books he'd accumulated over the years but never read. He was offered section eight housing, but he turned it down when he discovered he'd have to give up his books.

Stories: Part One

 As I start this, I have no title, because I'm not sure where this is going to go. But I do have a starting point. A few weeks ago while serving dinner in the park, someone mentioned that they'd heard that someone who'd lived outside for quite a while had passed away recently. He's of the first people I connected with when I first started making dinner for the homeless. His street name was 'Rabbit', prompted by the way he streaked around on his bicycle. The first time I met him, he was in line getting dinner, and he asked me if I'd get him a 12 step bible. It seemed like a good request to which I should respond, so I did. I was pretty sure he didn't have it anymore when the week after I gave it to him. That was my first experience dealing with an identified addict (more on that later, either in this post or at some later date). That was about ten (10) years ago. 

I discovered that his given name was Steven, and that's how I chose to greet him. He told me only two people called him Steven: I and his mother. He knew I was interested in hearing his story, and I gleaned bits and pieces of it over the years. Rabbit would show up for dinner for while, promise me he'd tell me more about himself, then he'd disappear for months. He admitted to being addicted to meth, but that didn't define him; he had a reputation for wanting to help people. At the same time, he was in bondage to that dependency; when addicts need their fix, they stop being the people you know as they do whatever it takes to get that fix. They're generally genuinely remorseful for what it was they did, and it was typically something unsavory. I guess the point I'm trying to get to is that if their behavior affects/harms you in some way, it's best to depersonalize it as best as you can. You might as well get angry at a dog marking a fire hydrant - it's what a dog does and in the same way, doing what it takes to get their fix is what addicts do.  Sometimes he showed up for dinner with seriously glazed eyes, which led me to suspect that he was high on something, but he was always polite. He was also a lot more sensitive than I first realized; I'm capable of a bit of snark, and he was genuinely hurt once when I made light of something that was important to him. After that incident, I made it a point to be more careful in my actions and behavior around him. 

He showed up last year after another prolonged absence. He'd dropped some 20-30 lbs after an extended stay in the hospital where he ended up after being found on the street in a diabetic coma.  At that time, I discovered that he was 53. I'm pretty sure he told me that he'd been living outside since high school, so that would have been about 35 years. 

Someone told me what they thought his last name was, so I've searching online looking for some sort of death/obituary notice to confirm the rumor, but no luck.  Until then I refuse to categorize this as a memorial.

However, the fact that I may never hear his story prompts to recall others I've met over the years who've passed on, more or less forgotten.

The first person I'll mention is Jay. He passed away the summer I got stabbed. He was a former military pilot, had a small aviation firm in the valley. but ended up living outside because he had a problem with alcohol. He was usually in the company of a Korean woman named Ono. She spoke little to no English, and I understood that she'd born and raised in Japan. She was typically always smiling and always carried a pair of drumsticks with her. I never found out the reason why. It turned out that they both had problems with alcohol. Jay is memorable to me because of something he did the summer after I got stabbed. Back then, we typically had some sort of devotional time reading a passage out of the Scriptures after the meal was served, and some folks would stay for that. The person who had the responsibility for the topic/subject that week (bless her heart) elected to go kinda secular and brought up the concept of love languages, the main thrust being that people had preferences in how they showed affections and in how they preferred to receive affection. I was verbally prodded to acknowledge that I typically showed love through spending time with people and through physical contact. Afterwards, I was engaged in conversation with some people while sitting at one of the picnic tables, and a crusty army vet nicknamed "Murph" (short for his last name of Murphy - I never knew his first name. Used to sleep in a van illegally parked for three years in an industrial section of Pasadena - and had a number of unpaid parking tickets to document this - before his military benefits came through and he got military housing somewhere in the valley) asked me something to the effect wasn't I still afraid if I was going to get attacked again. Before I could answer, Jay unexpectedly came up behind me and wrapped me up in a huge bear hug. And I said to Murph: "Well, if I was, THAT should have freaked me out!".

There are two main reasons why this stands out in my memories. First, I wasn't sure if I was in denial about any potential aftermath due to how I was attacked. Clearly, I really wasn't afraid that anything like that would happen again. But more importantly, I knew Jay was trying to express his affection & appreciation for me and my choice to continue serving dinner in the park after my attack, and it strengthened my resolve to continue.

Jay died of a heart attack less than a week later.