June 29th, 2010
Sometimes I wish I could post pictures of people with whom I’ve interacted so you can see what I see. But most homeless don’t want their pictures taken and I don’t want to make a spectacle of anyone, especially my little ones who are living on the streets.
This week we were helping our friends unload their moving trucks – they made a long trek from Boise to Southern California. We had to leave at 11 am during the move. And of course, due to my ingrained guilty conscience, I felt horrible for leaving before the job was done. But now in hindsight, I’m grateful we did.
It’s Costa Mesa, a nice community close to the beach and full of well-to-do’s and your average working class folks. We turned down a random street to get to the freeway and we spied on our left a homeless girl walking very slowly. My axiomatic response is, what do we have in the truck for her? I had nothing. I usually carry bags of food that are easily transported but because we were helping our friends move, I had not come prepared to help a homeless person. I had noticed she didn’t have any shoes on and she obviously slept outside. We turned right and drove on. But then immediately turned right to make our way back around to see what we could do. “I have my tennis shoes that I am wearing” I stated to my husband. She walked like her feet hurt and I wasn’t sure if shoes would help or hurt plus I felt sheepish giving her my used shoes (albeit my most favorite Nike running shoes) and my worn socks. We pulled around and stopped where she was bent over picking something up from the ground . She stood up and I asked her if I could give her my worn shoes… if that would that be okay. I didn’t expect an answer from her – but watched her expressions. She was either extremely drunk or mentally ill, either way, she had a hard time answering. I took off my shoes, apologized for the worn socks and handed them to her. She said “they’ll get ruined…” “that’s okay, they’re yours”.
We asked her if she had eaten yet? Again, I was not certain of her answer so I told her to keep walking in the same direction and I’ll get her something to eat. I ran into Subway, barefoot, got her a foot long on flatbread – she had very few teeth and I wanted her to be able to at least eat some carbs, and I had the guy cut it up into a few manageable pieces. I picked 3 cookies out, water, chips and we put them in a bag with a handle so she could carry it. While my husband waited in the truck, I took off down the sidewalk in her direction. 4 blocks down, there was my friend walking in her new Nikes. Her feet looked like they might hurt still by the way she was walking but I knew that the hot pavement would not be a problem for that day because she had on her new shoes. I gave her the bag and she made the funny moves with her head and acted like she was trying to talk but couldn’t and she reached out with her soiled hand clenched around something – she was trying to give me a crumpled up dollar bill…. “No sweety… you keep that – enjoy your lunch and please be safe”. And I waved goodbye turned and walked back up the street – barefoot – and grateful that I didn’t have my shoes on – and knowing what it felt like at that moment to walk over rough hot asphalt barefoot. And I cried – like I’m crying now. And I am so glad I left before the moving was complete…
