Who Is My Neighbor?
I want to tell you a story. It certainly is a story about the power of relationships. It just may be a story of redemption. It definitely is a story of the unexpected. But I want you, the reader, to decide if this is a story of us and them, or a story about us. I’m telling this story as if a drama, so let me tell you the cast of characters:
Jim, the protagonist, now deceased, a man who was homeless and stayed at our Winter Freeze Shelter
Shawna, his daughter
Brenden, a Federal Public Defender
Rebecca Kiger, a photojournalist
Scene One: In 2013 or so I first met Rebecca. She and Neal Warren, also a professional photographer, were doing a project for the Homeless Coalition called, “Share the Love.” The poor and homeless were given the opportunity to have professional portraits of them to keep or share. Rebecca expressed curiosity about our Winter Freeze Shelter and asked if she could visit several nights and shoot photographs of our guests with their permission. I agreed. She is an especially engaging woman, so for the most part, our guests clicked with her.
There was one man who seemed guarded, a bit resistive, and a little intimidating. That man was Jim. Jim could certainly seem all of that if you didn’t know him. He was tall, probably 6-foot-3-inches, lanky, one eye shot out (he was a Vietnam veteran), looked older than his late 50s, which is typical for people living outside, and his complexion was a little dark and careworn.
I liked Jim. He liked conversation, topics like history and politics as well as religion being his favorites. He would appear in my office from time to time with a question or request (never money) and would leave in short order, knowing I was working but punctuating his goodbye with a bawdy joke. He was a complex man filled with optimism on one hand but fearful about his future on the streets. The aches and pains both physical and emotional were taking a toll.
He was on supervised parole and it was revoked one summer for his failure to report his whereabouts. I never delved into his yesterdays, nor did he offer much detail. It’s really not important when today and tomorrow is enough to fill the plate.
Jim was sentenced to prison for two years. Before he left, I promised to stay connected and did so by writing to him, taking calls, and putting money on his books. I wanted especially to keep his spiritual light glowing because he was in need of hope. He had a Bible and would write about different passages that were meaningful to him. I had his worldly belongings safely stored in my office, which he wanted reassurance of from time to time.
Scene Two: One late summer/early fall, I received a call from a social worker from Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown intending to vet me to be Medical Power of Attorney (MPOA) for Jim. At that point, she couldn’t give me much information about Jim or his condition until the attending physician approved me as a MPOA. About an hour later, the social worker called back, telling me I was approved. She explained that Jim had a cancerous tumor on his spine, which rendered him paralyzed from the neck down, and had serious pulmonary problems resulting in a trach and the need for constant oxygen. Nearly every day afterwards I received a call from medical personnel from one field of medicine or another asking permission for specific procedures or treatments. I have some medical background, but always deferred to the experts. After a week of this I decided to visit Jim and learn his wishes.
When I arrived, a corrections officer initially barred me from visiting since technically, Jim was still a prisoner. My newly appointed MPOA allowed me to visit. When I saw Jim, he was handcuffed to the bed rails, evidence of a system’s policy over common sense. He looked haggard but perked up when I woke him. He needed one of those devices for trach victims to speak. We had a good conversation. He questioned whether he would survive this condition, but in true form, cracked a few jokes.
Before I left I asked if I could do anything for him and he said, “Would you find my daughter?” He said her name was Shawna, that she lived somewhere in the Pittsburgh area, and they hadn’t had contact in a long time. Of course I said yes. At work I asked people familiar with Facebook to try to locate her with no results. On a whim, I googled her name and read a story of a young woman federally charged behind a credit card scam of sorts. The article implied she would be incarcerated in the federal system.
I tried to find her on the Bureau of Prisons web page, which I have used before, but to no avail. That’s when I called Brenden, a federal public defender, asking if he knew a back door in the federal prison world to get me the information I needed. Several days later he emailed me Shawna’s lawyers’ contact information and her probation officer. He said she was put on house arrest rather than incarceration and ws now on probation. To my surprise, on a late afternoon, the probation officer returned my call and afforded me Shawna’s contact information, who also returned my call in short order.
Scene Three: Shawna and I quickly made plans to meet and visit her father. We were two people who didn’t know each other searching dozens of faces at the entrance of Ruby Memorial Hospital. I did have the foresight to have her named Jim’s secondary MPOA to give her permission to visit her father. Jim was overjoyed to see her. His condition had worsened since I last spoke with him. I allowed them to visit privately that day. We had several visits with Jim, the last one to say goodbye. The hospice chaplain was so helpful and supportive of Shawna. He told her that even though her father appeared sleeping or unconscious, hearing was often still functional. So she held him, wept for him and maybe herself, and felt the full weight of good memories and sad memories in that final goodbye. Several days later, I decided to box all of Jim’s belongings and send them to Shawna. I called for her address and she asked me if I had any pictures of Jim. I replied, “I know this photographer named Rebecca. I think she would be happy to connect with you.” And so it goes.
For several months I stayed in touch with Shawna, a hard worker, as she navigated several jobs and good judgment. I wish her a full life.
Epilogue: Fr. Greg Boyle, a Jesuit, who has worked with the gangs of Los Angeles with his program Homeboy Industries, talks about “kinship.” He says when we go to the margins where the isolated, the disenfranchised, the demonized live, and with compassion and kindness draw them to the center, we are exacting the kinship Jesus talked about and lived. He further states we will make God’s dream for us come true.
Imagine that! I’ll say it again; this story about the power of relationship — redemption of Jim with his daughter and perhaps his daughter with him — and most definitely a story about the unexpected. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s the expected that comes our way unnoticed. A Buddhist monk once said compassion is not a relationship with wounded and healer. It’s a relationship of equals.