Had dinner with a bunch of homeless men last night...our church does it every few months in rotation with some other churches. They stay the night in our buildings, get a shower, haircuts...
Just listening. One fellow talked of his lost childhood in a fishing family, how he began drinking because his grandmother died, and everyone else (father, stepfather...more) were mean alcoholics who beat him. For a while, he worked on a boat. His face lit up when I told him I'd lived in the same coastal area for a while and he reminisced (a little hard to understand at times, because he's brain damaged from a lifetime of severe alcoholism)...about crabbing, tonging (oyster beds), mussels...the sea.
Just talking about the food from the sea, and how he used to find it and fix it, clam chowder boiled on a woodstove, brought a trace of happiness to his face.
When I shook his hand it was rough as a plank. He wanted to go out to his backpack and get me a picture of his granddaughter but I had a meeting to go to.
His losses and his longing to not have broken his life -- but it having slipped so far beyond his capacity to grasp it back -- were so visible on his face. His eyes were vulnerable. He was a little drunk. He'd been on Antabuse, been in the detox ward for six months, been in the state mental hospital for two years. His family thought he was dead, found out he wasn't and turned up one day. He said he was amazed to see them.
Now he lives on the streets. We've had some very cold nights.
Hops
