Timing is everything and maybe this is a sign.
On Saturday we went to have a late lunch/dinner at a fast food place and not far from us was a homeless man just sitting, minding his own business. He wasn't bothering anyone and I didn't smell anything when I walked passed him (I have a very sensitive nose) so I didn't find him bothersome. It was a really hot day and he was probably just trying to stay cool. He asked a couple of people, maybe 3, if they had spare change after they took time to give him a look longer than the normal split second. One lady offered to buy him a burger, which he accepted. A young man, probably older teen, was selling chocolate for some religious something or other. I don't know what possessed him to go ask the obviously homeless man if he would buy a chocolate bar for his cause. The man replied with, "If I had any money on me I'd buy the whole box." They talked a little and the young man with the chocolates gave him a postcard with information to some sort of shelter or group home or something sponsored by his charity and a chocolate bar.
Someone must have complained that a less than neatly looking man was just sitting there because the manager came out and told him he had to leave despite waiting for the food the lady had purchased for him. The manager was quick to offer his money back and someone behind the counter said his food was ready and he was escorted back out into the heat. This is a big chain restaurant, mind you. And while part of me wants to blast them for that, I don't want to deter from my actual point.
Nicholas quietly witnessed all this but did not ask any questions. He is usually quick to ask the burning questions that come to his mind without any sensors and I try my best to answer them. But he didn't. And there was no way he fully understood what had happened. Maybe he knows more than I think...
On Sunday I spent some time on Upworthy.com. I do so from time to time. There was a video about some experiment asking if people would be able to recognise close relatives if they were homeless on the street. The point was to prove not just to the people in the experiment but to everyone watching that we just ignore the homeless exist in our every day lives and that is part of the problem. It was interesting to watch and got me thinking of the man at the restaurant, the questions Nicholas did not ask, and me 22 years ago to the day.
I have been homeless twice in my life. I've never slept on the street, but was still technically homeless. The first time I was only a year older than Nicholas, which is why I was afraid of any questions he had. I did not understand it then and don't know how he can understand now.
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On April 29, 1992, four police officers were acquitted after brutally beating up a black man in Los Angeles. Regardless of whether he was involved in some sort of wrong doing or the police officers felt that they were in some sort of danger, the video footage showed a thin black mean being brutally assaulted by 4 police officers. It would have taken maybe two officers to overpower him and cuff him, it was certainly not necessary to beat him. The acquittal made a lot of people angry and rioting soon began.
It was a day I did not go to school and because of the commotion my mother didn't want to leave me at home with my older sister and her daughter. We had already seen rioting on tv and it was focusing on vandalising and burning down business, our apartment was over several shops including a discount store. I don't remember the exact date but based on the timeline I can find online, it was probably Saturday, May 2nd. I wanted to stay and my mother said no. It was warm and I wore a pink sundress, a pair of underwear, and some white sandals with a buckle. My mother's work was very boring for a 7 year old, she cared for a blind old lady. The TV was tuned to the ongoing coverage of the riots. It was strange to slowly start recognising parts of my neighbourhood on the TV as my mom started to visibly worry. She called my sister several times. Then the phone rang and I remember hearing my sister's voice, "they're breaking the windows downstairs, it's really loud" and my mother responding in a panic I had never heard before or since, "Get the baby and get out!" We left for home.
I'll spare you the whole detailed story, unless, of course, someone wants to hear it all. But we went into our building while it was in flames because my sister was not outside. I remember being left with strangers with my 1 year old niece while they went to help fight the fire. I remember walking what google says is over a mile to one of my mom's friend's house and both my sister and mom were silently crying and what I recognise now as shock. Our building was gone.
So many things that my baby just cannot fathom, I lived. I owned nothing to wear other than what I was wearing that day for what seemed a very long time. Maybe a week or so. I remember my mother taking me from place to place trying to get things straightened out. She had some money in the bank but this was before debit cards with pin numbers was all you needed to take out money. She needed identification which was now gone. To get a new state ID card you need an original copy of your SS card. To get an SS card you need some form of government issued ID. I remember going into a police station to ask for a report of the fire so that she could prove that she had lost all her forms of ID and she being told that they just didn't have them yet because of all the fires and vandalism and to please come back in a week or two.
I remember going to a red cross set up in a high school gym. We got food and I got a sweater, my niece got a stuffed animal and diapers. My mom filled out a bunch of forms, so many sheets of paper. But we left with pieces of paper that must have been like gold to my mother: gift certificates. We got on the bus right outside the school and went to K-Mart. I clearly remember those Little Mermaid shoes. I always wanted character shoes but my mother would never buy them. We weren't rich by any stretch of the imagination but she never bought me cheap, pleather shoes. It's the only pair of character shoes she ever bought me. I remember ripping off the price tag that said $7.95, loving the relief from the sandals I had been wearing for days. I remember the new underwear that weren't stiff from being hand washed and hair dried every day for who knows how long.
I went back to this high school once while I was in high school for a football game. It was surreal and my first real realisation of how much those events had affected me.
I remember when we finally had a home, a little bachelor pad, seeing my mom wash and reuse the little plastic bowls that came with the single serve cereals that we got from a food bank, two plastic spoons and a plastic fork, a plastic cup we all shared. Over time we collected some real dishes from thrift shops. I didn't understand it then but even though we lost very little actual money it is very expensive to start from 0. We rented this place from a friend of a friend and they were kind enough to waive the deposit. Getting a new ID card costs money. Running around town on the bus to get documents to prove your identity and that your home was lost costs money and time from work. The company she worked for was kind enough to re-issue a check that had not been deposited into the bank and burned in the fire without asking for proof but it just wasn't enough. Even from the dollar store, having to buy everything all at once, soap, shampoo, laundry detergent, toilet paper, tooth brushes, toothpaste, hair brushes, etc., is very expensive.
I remember my mom sending me to school that Monday, probably the 4th, and telling me not to tell anyone what happened. She told me that if we didn't have a place to live they might take me and my niece and I remembered I did not tell anyone that day. I returned the next day to school wearing the same dress and sandals and no one said anything and I pretended all was normal. On the Wednesday we were running late that morning. The friend we were staying with lived with other relatives and children in the house, it was quite crowded, and there had been issues with getting out on time. At 7 1/2 my mom gave me her bus pass and put me on a public bus so that I could get to school in time to eat breakfast. I had nothing to fear, school was about a mile away and my mom told the bus driver on what street I should get off. She told me she was going to walk and when she got there she would have the office call me to take her her bus pass so she could get to work. Everything went fine until I was done eating and went to get in line and wait for our teacher to come take us inside. I remember standing there and feeling so overwhelmed. I had nothing, I owned nothing but what I was wearing. I had no backpack, no school work. My mom had written me a note to give to the teacher, with some lie obviously, so I wasn't in trouble. But at that moment not owning my own backpack felt horrible. Here I was in this place where everyone else had a backpack because it was needed I didn't have mine because it burned. In the building that was set on fire by people. In the building I watched burn to the ground. The building I had known my whole life since my grandmother had lived in our apartment before we did. I couldn't cope and I started crying. The teacher was confused and I must have not been making sense because other teachers were trying to calm me. What I do remember clearly is at one point all I could say was, "Our building burned, I saw it burning, it was so hot inside and I couldn't get my backpack!"
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I don't remember when it started but by the time I was in high school I could not see a homeless person without re-living all that. It has taken a long time for me to realise and accept how traumatic that actually was. I guess it was after the realisation of all the sacrifices my mother must have made so we were ok. How often did she not eat herself so we could? How long was it before she bought herself a decent amount of clothing and not just two sets to wash and wear. How must she have felt to have worked so hard her whole life and suddenly she was struggling to get by day to day by no doing of her own? How did she feel loosing everything? And I wonder these things about the homeless. I wonder what their story is. I wonder when was the last time they had a drink of water. And I find it so hard to resist not to do something. Since high school I have often handed over a bottle of water I was carrying figuring that I may have taken a drink from it but if they haven't had a drink of water in days they may not mind my germs. I have often bought a meal, a coffee and doughnut, handed over a granola bar I was saving for later.
(Un?)fortunately, I haven't done this with Nicholas with me in a long time. There either aren't any where we are or they are obviously drugged or drunk and I do have to care for our safety so I do not approach them. So he has not seen me interact with them, he has not questioned. And I do not know what to tell him when he does because I choke back tears when I see them, I don't know how I will hold them back trying to explain to that innocent face that I was not much older than him when I had no home.
And that he and I were both homeless when he was a baby.
Life happened and it wasn't nice and suddenly I found myself without a home and with a 2 month old baby. And those questions I had often wondered about my mother I was answering myself. I was lucky, I had people help us and we got through it and got out of that situation. Not everyone is so lucky.
One of the most wonderful things about Nicholas is his innocence. He is much more innocent than most children his age and this makes him so loving and kind and compassionate. Not all the time, he has his moments of anger and out of control behaviour, but for the most part. I know that if he understood he had no problem being compassionate towards the homeless himself but that is a harsh reality that I am not sure I am ready for him to know. I'm not ready for his innocence to begin dying, for him to realise that there are some real sad and scary things in this world, in our neighbourhood. He should not have to understand those scary things I was forced to.
And I'm just not ready to talk about any of this out loud. And maybe this is a sign that I need to start actually dealing with some of this stuff and not just burying it inside.
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