Unimaginable Humanity

I work at a homeless shelter, and sometimes what we do never seems to pay off in any respect. I'm not talking about me feeling good about myself because I helped someone out, and so now I can sleep at night, not that kind of payoff. This is the kind of job where clients end up living in shelters, more specifically our shelter, for years with no end in sight. People resist housing due to chemical dependency, or mental health issues, or sometimes it is related to family issues, and sometimes the person simply doesn't mind their lifestyle, in fact sometimes it is their choice.

But then there are those people that we do not even realize want, or need help. We can get stuck in our own beliefs due to the environment we work in, the types of people we see, and we create our own stereotypes that we then categorize these people into. It can be the most draining work in the world when you cannot figure out how to assist someone, and they can't tell you how either. Today something happened that turned all of this upside down.

There was is a client that has been in the shelter for a few years now, he has been homeless for almost 20. Somewhere along the line, he lost contact with his family including his daughter. This could be due to his drinking habit, but honestly we are not exactly sure what ever ends someone up at the shelter. He is also Spanish speaking, so the language barrier was also an obstacle.

Anyway, I digress. This gentleman has kind of flown under our radar for a while now, but we had a new case manager start a few months ago who happens to be fluent in Spanish, and he picked him up. After a while of talking with the client, he found out that the client was actually very interested in trying to reconnect with his family, but no longer knew were they are located. The client provided the case manager with the last phone number he had for his daughter. After a few phone calls, the case manager was able to locate his family.

It can be challenging in these situations, because sometimes the family wants nothing to do with their long lost relative. Sometimes the family doesn't even realize the person is still alive. In this case, the latter was found out to be true. When they found out that he was alive, and well, they jumped on a plane to come the shelter.

This is the event that has forever changed my perspective on social work, and even more importantly, on humanity. Yesterday morning while juggling phone calls, client requests, staff requests, and the other million things I get to do every morning, I was stopped dead in my tracks.

The case manager walked in with the clients family members, including his brothers, his daughter and his grandchildren. They are asked to wait just a second, and I could already see the tears on their faces, and feel tears prickling at the back of my eyes. When those people saw their father, brother, grandfather, all the usual noises seemed to switch off. His daughter approved him, and ever go gently rose her hand to his face. Everyone else then made a circle around him, enveloping him, re-welcoming him back into their lives. While they all cried, held their chests to keep their hearts from beating out of their ribs, he stood there with a face-cracking toothless grin.

My co-workers, and I who are used to hiding strong emotions began to cry. Hot, wet, silent tears created streams on our flushed faces. It seemed like they stood their, simply soaking in the presences of one another for hours. The embraces never broke, they moved almost as one as they exited the shelter. The client's daughter did stop, and hug the case manager so tight I thought I could hear his ribs crack, and before she left she came to the desk with her hands covering her heart. She thanked us many times. I surprised myself by reaching out my hands to embrace hers, and went to say "your welcome", but nothing came out of my mouth. We both nodded to each other, and she went to get to know her dad.

the first shadow

Starting this blog has been a long time coming. I have continually gone around, and around trying to decide if I was ready to put myself out there for all to see. Luckily I have made the first move in jumping off the cliff I have been looking out over for some time now.

Writing has become my form of catharses, a way for me to shake the shadows from my being. Mostly I write poetry, slam poetry to be exact, some of which I plan to post here. It may sound clique, but writing has saved my life more than once, and I am sure it will continue to play a vital role. I hope that what I write here will speak to someone out there perhaps inspiring creativity of any kind. So to who ever is out there, thank you for reading this. I am excited to start on this new path.