A middle-aged Hispanic man is walking past the car where I pull up to the light. He sits down on the curb two cars behind us. He has a sign, but I don’t read it. I take a deep breath, my heart pounding, having anticipated this moment. For the first time, I’m not going to stare ahead at some imaginary, interesting thing on the horizon, or fiddle with my cell phone, or turn around to face my children instead of the presence outside my car making me uncomfortable. This time will be different.
I roll down the window and call out, “Sir?” He jumps up with smile revealing that he is missing a front tooth. I hold out the bag and say, “I have a lunch here, if you haven’t eaten already.”
For a blazing split-second, I panic. What if my offering is rejected? Will he be disappointed or angry I’m not offering cash? Will he be disgusted that I choose not to trust him with money? Will I seem stingy?
But, his face brightens. “Thank you so much, ma’am!” He takes the bag from me as the traffic light changes.
We drive up Freedom Parkway. The children have been watching quietly. My four-year old daughter offers, matter-of-factly, to the five-year old boy in our carpool, “We made yunches for da homeless people.”
“What’s in the lunch?” is his obvious first question- it is lunchtime, after all. I tell him.
“What did the sign say?” is the second question. I say that I didn’t read all of it, but the last part was “Please Help.”
This little boy has been working on learning to read in kindergarten and had tried to read the sign. “One of the words was ‘on.’ Or, maybe ‘no.'”I considered that perhaps I had conditioned myself not to read the signs as part of the “looking away.”
Like a reader mentioned in another post this week, one of my earliest memories of reading is reading signs- street signs, billboards, stop signs. I remember my mother and I having a game finding typos and grammatical errors in signs- “Ethnic Grocerys” or “Cigaretts.” It takes a special effort for me to NOT read the signs.
Recently, on a nearby corner where lunches #4, #6, #7, #11 and #12 were given away, I noticed several of these signs laying on the ground among the long weeds and empty cups. One was woven between two branches in a scraggly tree. I wondered if, like many other items that make up the daily life of a homeless person, the signs were salvaged and reused. I was tempted to get out of the car and read them, examine them, to document them in some way, but it was rush hour. I figured I’d come back at a less busy time, but the next time I waited at that light, the city crews had come by and mowed down all the weeds and removed the signs, along with the detritus.
Gah! This made me so sad, Claire–especially thinking about the ways in which these people are rendered invisible–by us (looking away, pretending to do something in the car so we don’t have to make eye contact) and by policies that seek to make our cities look clean and litter-free. It reminded me of the movie District 9, where they put the alien/robot-types way far out of the city so people didn’t have to see them. The whole if we ignore it, they will go away.
I love that you are doing something to contribute rather than looking away.
Has anyone seen the movie In Search of the Mole People? It’s an amazing film that uncovers a whole underground shanty town in the abandoned space under the pavement of New York. Gentrification sucks.
Claire, I think your experience here is profound. The whole question of not seeing signs because we’ve trained ourselves not to is huge – and something we all need to carefully consider, in our society. Children don’t do that. It’s great that you’ve involved your kids in your journey here.
I have seen that! It was fascinating.
Thanks for sharing your experience. It’s a good example for the kids.
I live in downtown and see many people with signs. If I’m on bike or foot I sometimes stop and talk to them. No one sets out in life expecting this is how they’ll end up.
Claire, this is beautiful. I’ve never had an “asker” be anything but grateful for whatever I could offer them. I usually give them a dollar, or all the change in my purse. I don’t care what they buy with it. If I had to live the life of an asker, I can only imagine what I would buy…….
I hear you, Jacque. We recently gave a woman we saw outside a gas station $5. She had a story about how she needed gas money, etc., etc. The kids asked us whether we thought her story was real when we got in the car. We told her probably not . . . the story was suspicious at several points. But then Brent said: “I don’t care whether her story was real or not. She looked like a sad lady.” Then one of the kids said: “But what if she goes out and buys beer or cigarettes with your $5?” Brent shot right back: “I don’t care what she does with it. If she goes out and buys a beer with my $5 and it makes her feel better, then great.” The kids thought that was a funny response.
Luckily, we live in a small town where this rarely happens. I know it’s harder for people in urban areas who encounter this numerous times every day.
I used to pass out bottled water at the highway on ramps during the summer. “Asking” is not for the weak. It wasn’t until I wondered what those same people did in the winter (I was trying to figure out how to keep emergency coffee or hot chocolate in the car) that I began donating my “water funds” to the local rescue mission. I was never very good at keeping cash around, but I agree; whatever they feel like spending it on is better than what i think they should spend it on. Great post and great reminders – especially to involve our kids.
You inspired me. I had a conversation with a homeless lady today after I bought her some lunch while I was in Target. Her Bible was sitting there, so I said “I bet God seems far away from you right now…” and she immediately said “Oh no He doesn’t!!! He has done so much for me!!!” and proceeded to recount how lucky she was in so many ways. I was deeply humbled by her attitude.
I love what you’re doing — I’m going to do something similar. I do want to know the answer, though — what IS in the lunches?? :D
I love hearing what some of you are doing, and how it goes, especially those of you having conversations with people. Because most of my interactions are at traffic lights, I don’t have that opportunity. My friend that runs a homeless ministry makes TALKING to the homeless the main focus of her organization. Being treated like a human being rather than something to ignore makes a world of difference- and it’s what Jesus would do, right?
Lisa- the ones I made up in the first batch had a Gatorade, a Nutrigrain bar, a box of raisins, small can of sausages, a pack of peanut butter crackers, a train pass, a napkin, and a fork, along with a card listing local resources. I don’t think there is any special formula for what would be good, but those seemed like things that would be easy to eat and could sit in my hot car for weeks on end. Of course, as Corktree mentioned, cold drinks in the summer and hot drinks in the winter would be ideal, but aren’t always possible.
Claire, thank you. Those awkward moments at intersections and freeway off-ramps are so vivid — like I’ve experienced them in a dream I’ve just awoken from, equally fleeting. I’d typically blame the “fake” homeless person for making me feel that way then just a moment later forget the feeling altogether.
You’re reminding me of this feeling in the context of owning that feeling and acting to change it. You are making the world better by placing this thought in me.
PS. I love that feature article image. It looks like paper sacks, but also like something floral if you don’t look too close.
I was smoking a cigarette outside the salvation army store in Ogden once, a homeless guy asked me for a smoke so I obliged, he said “Thanks! I’ll put you on my christmas list!” that made my day…