by
Susan Fox
“Gimme Shelter,” about a
pregnant unwed teen’s struggle to survive on the streets and keep her baby, is
popular with movie audiences right now. It is also bringing the reality of what
life on the streets is like for many homeless people.
“Inasmuch as you did it
to the least of my brethren you did it to me.” (Matt 25:40)
Huge
purple bruises covered her face. She limped, carrying a small bag over her
shoulder containing all her worldly belongings.
She
was an American Indian from Eastern Washington. And I could see clearly she
needed comfort. But tragically, I was unable to offer it.
It
was 1978. Fresh out of graduate school I was in my first job covering
agriculture, business and mining for The Spokesman Review in Spokane, Wash. I
had just stepped out of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Lourdes in downtown
Spokane where I had been to the noon Mass.
I
had time for a kind word, but I couldn’t offer it.
I
was afraid.
I
prayed desperately, “Dear God, please send someone like my mother to this
woman. Dear God, please.... make me like my mother.”
To
understand that prayer, you’d have to understand the way I was raised. I had no
brothers, no sisters, no father – just a cat and a Mom. But our life was rich
-- rich with needy people. My Mom
worked, but she also visited the sick, ran Catholic discussion groups and did
door-to-door evangelization. If someone had no one on Thanksgiving Day, they
ate dinner at our table. She always said, “Susan, don’t feel sorry for
yourself. Go do something for someone else. That’s the secret of happiness.”
Some
of my earliest memories include visiting an elderly man, basically a stranger,
who was vomiting as I watched. By the time I was in high school, I sometimes accompanied
Mom to visit Mrs. “George.” Mom had gone to the nursing home in Port Townsend,
Washington, and asked for the neediest, least visited person there. And they
gave her the completely bed-ridden Mrs. George. When we first started visiting
her -- I have to admit -- she was a very unpleasant elderly woman. Mom visited
her faithfully for at least 15 minutes every week – for 12 years. After seven
years, Mrs. George became Catholic. She also became very pleasant.
Mom
never preached.
She
brought her things to make her happy -- a little radio, romance books, and
things to pass the time, nothing fancy. I remember watching Mom lean over the elderly
woman. Mrs. George looked up at her with more love than I, her own daughter,
showed her. I loved my mother, but my goodness, Mrs. George looked at Mom as if
the sun rose and set where she stood.
Yep,
that was real love.
So
seeing that Indian woman in Spokane was my Waterloo. Could I help people without my mother
by my side?
With
my usual impetuousness, I set out to find out. I joined the Servants of Christ,
a group that included a nun, two brothers, married and single lay people. Our
purpose was to serve “the least, the last and the lost.” The bishop had
approved our request to become a pious order.
In
connection with that, one of the Servant brothers left a request under my door
one morning: “Willard wants to see you. He's in county jail.” I was scared, but I thought I
had to go. This was the Lord’s call. In retrospect, no one should send a single
woman alone to visit a single man in jail! But I didn’t have any discernment at
that stage of my life. I think God understood.
Skid
Row Profiles #1
Willard’s
Heart: Made for God
by
Susan Fox
He
worked in the adult book store –
the
one they call, “The Rat” –
a
cigarette in his mouth
and
a new-grown mustache;
a
man and a little class.
He
came to us
like
the cat
on
the Fourth of July --
thrust
into the Center by loud noise,
shivering
and afraid.
But
he chose to stay.
People
avoided Willard,
but
he never abandoned anyone.
So
when he got into trouble,
involving
a girl and assault charges later cancelled,
I
went to see him.
In
jail were the families of those imprisoned there:
we
hung around like unwanted children
hunched
in the corners, naked with no place to hide.
When
I finally got in, I saw the changes:
he’d
been there two months
and
it was bad.
new
wrinkles of pain marked his young face,
his
wrist was bound up and broken
and
he had eyes
that
never rested anywhere.
He’d
finally got me there
by
kicking and screaming;
and
now cool as you please,
a cigarette
in his mouth
and
a new-grown mustache,
he
all but swallowed me.
I
was totally unprepared
for
the rush of gentleness
he
wretched from me.
Willard
was the boy
who
couldn’t understand
what
“sister” meant;
thought
it was some form of sexless love,
the
kind that can be won over in the end.
He
was the boy,
who
grew up early
on a
warm August night --
when
his father was shot in a liquor store hold-up.
The
cops were sorry,
but
the woman and the child
remembered
the second shot -- fired after the first.
In
the shadow of his father’s death;
he
started life
in
the back of a beat-up old pick-up.
In
the morning
he
woke up -- alone
left
behind with the garbage can.
And
Willard was the man
with
an emotional disability
that
landed him in jail periodically;
charged
with assault
but
with no conviction.
I
agreed to meet him that day.
But
no amount of womanly gentleness
will
ever satisfy
the
paralyzing neediness
of
Willard’s human heart.
And so I
began the duel identity of my single life: mild-mannered Clark Kent-type news
reporter by day and Catholic evangelist by night.
I think my
bosses would have been surprised to see what I did while I wasn’t working.
They
probably would have wanted a story written about it.
Luckily, they never found out.
So you have it here first.
