There Go I

Although the world is very full of suffering,

it is also full of the overcoming of it.
 

-Helen Keller-

There's been something eating away at me all week.  I've been trying to brush it aside with good thoughts, but it keeps coming back to haunt me.  There is a park around the corner from my home, and although adults without children are no longer allowed sit in the park due to fear of pedophiles, there are benches surrounding the outer park, and this  is where the homeless sit,  day in and day out.  It breaks my heart to see it, outreach teams have tried to bring them in off the streets, but they choose not to go.  And one can't force them to go, not until the temperature outdoors becomes extremely cold.

At one time it was only a group of men.  Now I am noticing women sitting there as well. This past Saturday there was an elderly woman who was white-haired and appeared to be in or close to her 70's.  The poor thing was eating an ONION.  That was obviously all the food that she had.  I had money in my bag, but I learned along time ago that that only goes to buy  alcohol, if not for her,  the men who were milling around would find a way to get some out it, so I figured when my food delivery arrived at home, I would take her some of the fruit and treats I had bought.  I did bring her back some food, which she refused to take from my hand, looking at me with distrust, so I just set it down on the bench next to her and went back home.  She obviously wasn't used to kindness, but I have to wonder how her family could allow this to happen to her or does she have no one? 

There is another older couple who live from the back of their old station wagon.  Each day they move to a new parking spot and take out a couple of lawn chairs and sit.  She has a cane, and he helps her along.  I've given them the number to our family shelter, but people are so distrusting of the New York shelter system, and from the horror stories I hear from my clients, I can't blame them.     This city is in a bad way right now, and the homeless situation is out of control.  There is not enough affordable housing, especially for seniors, so more and more people are ending up on the streets with no place to go.

What has been sticking in my mind when I think of that lady  is  the saying, 'There but for the grace of God, go I.'  Perhaps this woman and her husband worked all of their lives and lost everything.  Perhaps, like me, every time they got a little bit ahead, something came up that ate away their savings.  Homelessness is something that can happen to any of us. I , myself, am only one paycheck away from sitting next to her on that park bench, and , to be honest, it scares the heck out of me. What if something happens and I can no longer work?  I've worked all of my life, but the amount I would get from social security wouldn't even pay my rent.  Ironically, clients of mine who never worked a day in their life, sold drugs for a living, are being paid more than I would...but that's another story, and I am not going to go there today.  Suffice it to say that if I retired tomorrow, I would barely make $900, but a lifelong drug dealer is bringing in $1700.   Where is the fairness in it all?

But, as I sit here at my desk today, I  cannot help think of that  poor lady on the bench and wonder what her story is.  How did she arrive to where she is at today?  And I wish someone would come along and whisk her off that bench and offer her a safe, warm place to stay.  But would she go?  I think not for, what I can see, she has lost the ability to trust.  And all I can do is sit here and say 'There but for the grace of God, go I.'