From my desk I look out on a city park that is picturesque and well maintained. In all the years that I have been here I have seen just about everything, from drug busts to stabbings, some fatal. I opened my blinds one morning to see a flea circus had camped outside my window overnight and performers in their pajamas were making their way toward the park restrooms. Two weeks ago a young black bear was tranquilized not far from where I sit but unfortunately drowned in the creek that runs through the park before he could be rescued. There are many more humans in the park needing to be rescued.
Today I am looking out at lady who has occupied a nearby picnic table all summer. She arrives every morning with a shopping cart piled very high with what must be all her worldly belongings and a small cat in a carrier. She is in a wheelchair and, when no one is able to help her, she drags the cart with her toes as she wheels backward toward the table she has claimed as hers. I have no idea where she goes at night. Our long drought has finally ended so she is often under a blue plastic tarp that covers her, her shopping cart and her cat. She screams periodically, even on good days. I cannot make out what she is screaming about and have no idea what triggers the outbursts. In the spring and summer I bike to work and I have often passed her as she arranged her table for another day. I never had the courage to make eye contact nor even acknowledge her.
Until a few days ago she didn’t have a name. An article in the local paper last week told me how this poor soul happens to be my “neighbor”.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091011/LIFE/910110311 It gave me some insight into many of the other nameless, faceless people who have only the park to call home and told a very heartwarming story about a couple who care for these people.
I should feel guilty that I sit here warm, dry and, thanks to a federal project I am working on, earning a decent living. I had planned to make a year end gift to St. Vincent DePaul which operates a very nice homeless shelter. I probably won’t wait until the end of the year because their need is great and it is urgent. My neighbor is probably one of the many who would not use the shelter but she is a constant reminder to me of all who share her plight. There is only a pane of glass and a few feet of landscaping that separate her from me but I am all too aware that it is only one bad break or an unforeseen health catastrophe that could put me much closer to her.