Their stories ~ now you can't say you never knew…

I met Shari sitting outside Carleton Cinemas on one of the rare snowy nights we had in January. She was bundled up with a parka, a sleeping bag, and had put out a little black eight-ball in front of her, promising good karma for spare change. I opted to toss her a sub from Subway instead and we started talking about our lives and what brought her to the streets of Toronto.

Shari was from a smaller town in Ontario. She had a son in grade two and a young daughter who was born very recently. During her pregnancy, she had experienced some trouble with her partner who was in and out of jail regularly. She also had to deal with the mounting bills he was leaving behind. It was a pretty rough time from what she described, and it didn’t get any better once the baby came. The little sleep she was already getting, the stress of an impending eviction, and her son missing a little too much school in the wake of all that chaos caused Social Services to take an interest in her kids. On a visit to the hospital to follow up on some of the health problems her new daughter was experiencing, they took her kids away and Shari found herself alone on the streets shortly after.

Now, I’m not a parent, so I won’t pretend to relate to the feeling of desperation I could see in Shari as she described the loss of her children. I do, however, have a mother, and I can only imagine the amount of whoop-ass with which mine would handle a similar situation.

I guess that’s what I liked about Shari: this was a woman who was understandably sad and angry, but not defeated.

When we were talking to her back in January, we had helped her to make use of Legal Aid to fight for returned custody and we fell out of touch shortly after she had found a lawyer. It was only towards the end of April that I ran into Shari sitting in the same place as before. This time, she was huddled up from the rain, once again asking for money.

We had some pizza together and she told me the court case was going well and that she hoped to have her kids back soon. The lady taking care of them in the foster care system was not particularly pleasant, and according to her son, had not been feeding them that frequently. When Shari had been allowed to visit her daughter the previous week, she had noticed a diaper rash, which implied that her daughter wasn’t being changed often enough either. Did that kind of treatment make her mad? You bet. But she wanted to emphasize the fact that it made her all the more determined to get her kids out of there.

As we talked, strangers would walk by and leave some change every so often. It wasn’t much, but I couldn’t help wondering what she was doing with the money she ended up making. I had to assume it was for food, and if I knew absolutely nothing about Shari maybe I would have even assumed it was going towards something worse. But, I have to say that I was wholeheartedly surprised when she reached inside her bag and showed me where it had all been going.

Shari had been saving up and just bought her son a Spiderman costume. She was hoping to have the money for an Iron Man costume the next week. She said that getting her son to feel like a superhero, even for little bits at a time, helped him cope with the awful ordeal he had been through. Shari said she wanted to give that feeling to him no matter what, even if it meant she was eating a little less and spending her nights in the cold.

Even after almost nine months of talking to people on the streets, Shari was a pleasant reminder about the sacrifices that people in a tough situation are willing to make for others. People like her continue to shatter my assumptions about the folks you’ll find any night on the street, and I’ll be thinking of her and hoping for the best this coming Mother’s Day.

- R.

This is a very personal story from one of our contributors:

—

I met Vern in November 2010. The sixty-one year old was huddled under an emaciated blanked which extended from his torso to just above his knees. Vern’s grey beard swayed with the wind and the virginal winter’s frigid air sent shivers throughout his body. Put simply, his being was filled with the markers of the street. But, neither the grime nor the dilapidation was a stain, for the story that I shall tell you speaks to how Vern wiped away the filth that homelessness hurls upon its victims.

Vern and I have conversed numerous times over the last year. Last year, depression consumed my mind and struggled to keep myself from wasting days in my bed. Swapping stories with him and sharing tales of inner-grief reduced my feeling of isolation. We helped each other.

Every time I brought him a meal, he always described his triumphs and the pain that, even today, he will always carry with him. Vern’s words best reflect his turmoil, so I will allow him to tell you about his life.

—

I was born in Brampton. My Mom was a deadbeat runaway. After she had me, she disappeared. Gone, baby, gone! That left me alone with my Dad. He was a simple guy, not flashy. He worked as a waiter or something like that. He was never around at night. And on almost all days of the weekend, he was working. I can’t blame him for not having time for me. He was in a single-income house without any real education. He needed to support us. We needed to eat. We needed to keep the house standing. We needed some sort of functionality, you know?

To help him, I dropped out of school after tenth grade and took two jobs: one working at a local grocery store and the other also as a server at a restaurant.

I was twenty. One night-a scorching and humid summer night-I got home from work and I heard a creak upstairs. It was a peculiar sound and I don’t know why it haunted me at the time, but maybe it was some sort of intuition. The human mind is weird with emotional stuff like that, you know? I walked slowly, nervously, up the stairs, yeah. Dad was there. He was hanging lifelessly from a rope. No note. No goodbye. No explanation. My best guess is that life, for him, meant constant work. He could never be around me. He lost the love of his life, my mom. He was lonely and saw no hope. But, I just wish that I could have showed him more love. I wish we could have spent more time together. I loved my Dad. He was only forty. What a waste of life!

I could not stand to stay in Brampton. So, I sold the house without an agent and certainly got ripped off. But, I was twenty and ignorant and stupid and emotionally unstable.

When the house was gone, I walked to the bus station and took the first available train. All I had was a small duffle of my stuff. It took me to Kingston, where I have never left. I took a bunch of shifts at a grocery store again, you know. And there, I met Edward and we quickly fell in love. I do not think I can know another love like his. I will never try to find that love.

Anyway, we were both coming home from a late night at the store. We were crossing the street and, wham, we were hit by a drunk driver. Eddie was dead on the scene. And, his insides were splattered all over the unceremonious pavement. I was in the hospital for a while and that’s why I can barely walk today.

So, I had to quit my job in the back of the grocery store and nobody wanted to hire an no-good cripple like me. I was jobless and I had nobody. Eventually, I couldn’t pay the rent for my apartment, so I wound up on the streets where I have now been for decades.

Here, I have been harassed. Students throw eggs at me. They taunt me. They steal my blankets. Not just students, I should say. People. Supposedly mature adults. They treat me as an object for their amusement. I do not blame society for what happened to me, but damn it, some members of this society seem to sure as hell enjoy my embarrassment, my shame, my desperation, my humiliation.

I tried to get jobs and had one for a few weeks, but I was too slow, so they fired me. Then, I did not look presentable. You know, I looked like a homeless person, the kind of guy whose entrance into any establishment would evoke mockery.

—

I felt the inside of my pocket and remembered that I had won $400 playing Pro Line the night before. Indeed, I did not work for this money; I correctly guessed the results of four sports matches. Vern needed the money more than I did. So, he and I, despite the stares of disapproval from staff and onlookers, went to a convenience store where I purchased razors, shaving cream, soap, shampoo, scissors for a haircut, socks, and blanket for him. Then, we picked up shoes and clothing at a second-hand store.

Vern removed the living descriptors of life on the street from his body. One week later, he got a job working as a cashier. And today, he now lives comfortably in his own apartment.

Verno, I could not be more proud of you than I am right now.

- A.