Homeless Diary, Entry Two

This story should have been my first, as it was the first time I had an in depth encounter with someone homeless, but my last story was on my mind at the time, when I sat down to write. Let me preface that the stories that I am told, are their stories that may or may not be all true, but they are what was relayed to me.

It was in the fall of 2014, when I husband I came out of a Park Slope subway exit, when we were approached by a man for some money. He was a senior gentleman that said he was trying to get money together so he could spend the night in a shelter sponsored by the Brooklyn Tabernacle. We gave him five dollars and we went our way, and I didn’t give him much of a thought after that. A few months later, on a bitter cold winter’s night I was in the Park Slope area again, heading to a supermarket when I was approached by this same gentleman with the same story, about needing the money to get a room for the evening. I again gave him five dollars and as I was about to turn away he started to talk to me. He told me he was a veteran, which was what he had told my husband and myself before. And then he told me he didn’t know why it was he had not died, with all that he had been through, and that he wished he was dead. He started to cry because he said he had lost his mother fairly recently, and he had lost his daughter years before. These were crushing blows to him. He was able to go to his mother’s funeral, but his family did not invite him to come and live with them. The tears rolled freely down his face as he recounted his story. He said he hadn’t been knowledgeable before to understand that he could make a claim from the veteran’s, but recently he had a lawyer that was working to get a judgment in his favor, and he hoped to receive funds that were owed to him. He said he was tired on being on the street. He was older now and this was no life. He wanted a home, a place of his own.

We spoke for about a half hour, and it was getting late. I excused myself and went inside the supermarket to get turkey sausage for dinner. Unfortunately, the price of the sausage was more than what I had on me, so I left. As I came out he saw me and asked why I didn’t have a bag in my hand, and I told him I didn’t have enough. He said he would buy me the turkey sausage. I just shook my head, his offer was enough.