A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless Read Online Free PDF Page B

know why, but I knew that this boy was meant for me, and even now I cry as I write about him. As we approached, I could see how young he was. He had long hair and a youthful face, and he was soaked to the skin. He was blond, and he had a face like Jesus. He had sores all over his face, and inevitably I thought of AIDS, but I was not really thinking as I looked at him, I was feeling. He was mumbling incoherently, and his blue eyes seemed to look through me. He looked to be about nineteen or twenty, the same age as Nick.
    He was just a boy, sitting on a doorstep, soaking wet, in a shirt and jeans. He had one leg, the other was amputated at the knee, and his crutches were scattered on the street around him. I walked to him, momentarily speechless, unable to even offer him what we had to give. I stood there with tears rolling down my cheeks as he spoke deliriously. And then finally I was able to tell him that we had a warm jacket and a sleeping bag for him. He nodded. I offered to take him somewhere but he shook his head vehemently. For a moment, I almost wondered if my mind was playing some kind of trick. Was I seeing this only so that I would know how badly we were needed? And if Nick hadn’t been so lovingly cared for all his life, is this how he would have wound up, with one leg, delirious, soakingwet on the streets? This boy was clearly the same age, and seemed possibly mentally ill. And as much as I reached out to that boy that night, I knew I was also doing it for his mother. Would some other woman have done that for me, if it had been Nick? One could only hope so.
    I set our supplies down on the step next to him and stood there for a long moment, as slowly he pulled himself back into the doorway, a little more out of the rain, and we stayed there looking at each other. I said, “God bless you,” because I didn’t know what else to say, and it took all my strength to turn around and walk away, to leave him there and not put my arms around him. I was still crying when I got back to the van, and no one spoke on the way home. There was not a sound.
    Unlike others, whom I sometimes ran into repeatedly over the years, I never saw that boy again. It’s hard to believe he’s still alive, given the condition he was in that night. It made me grateful Nick had never come to that, and it made me realize again how lucky we had been to have him, even if we lost him too soon. I tucked that boy in the doorway into my heart that night, and I will carry him there forever.

THREE

The Team
    W ith the second night on the streets, I supposed I had fulfilled my mission. I had listened to the message in church, followed directions, and gone out there. Twice. Three times, if you counted the time I went back to see the girl with cancer after my Christmas party. But by January, I knew it wasn’t a one- or two-time thing.
    I remembered nearly every face we had seen so far, and I had become aware of a need so enormous that there was no way I could turn my back on it. I had seen too much to pretend it wasn’t happening, in my own backyard, in my own city.
    There were other things I could have done, like work through an established organization. I knew of a family shelter, and had sent them gifts at Christmas. There are two incredibly efficient dining rooms for the homeless in SanFrancisco. But the idea of going to work for some organization already established to help the homeless didn’t appeal to me. I wanted to continue what we’d started. And even if it was uncomfortable and unnerving at times, even scary, I liked working outdoors, on the streets, going out to look for people, and handing them things directly. That way, I knew they received what we intended to give them, and I wasn’t relying on others to distribute what we had bought.
    I had a strong sense that those who were in the most dire need, or the least functional, were not able to find their way to dining rooms, churches, or shelters. I wanted to go to them and find them where