Tag: Homeless

Last-Minute Shopping? Think Extravagance

On By Mary KochIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

A well-worn five dollar bill tucked inside a Christmas card is the most extravagant gift I expect to receive this year. It was given to me during my Friday night piano gig at St. James Cathedral Kitchen.

Five nights a week Kitchen volunteers serve a free, hot meal to whomever shows up — usually around two hundred folks or more. By appearances, I’m guessing the patrons include plenty of homeless folks, some elderly residents of subsidized apartments in the neighborhood, maybe a few university students, occasional families with youngsters. And dogs. Dogs on leash are admitted.

I’m one of the pianists who add background ambience, making the church social room feel less institutional with a layer of music under the chatter and clatter of dishes. The piano is one of the most out-of-condition I’ve ever contended with. There’s no bench, but an office chair on wheels. That does not work for me. I haul a couple of cushions on the four-block trek from my apartment to the cathedral. I set them on a folding chair so I can approach the keyboard from a perch that won’t roll away. The keys almost always sound when activated. Who could ask for anything more? 

It is the highlight of my week. I occasionally substitute for pianists on other nights, but Friday is mine.

Friday happens to be the night when Sue and Susan meet up for their weekly dinner together. I do not know their last names, stories or ages (I’m guessing in their sixties, maybe crowding seventy). Nothing about their appearance suggests monetary wealth. I know Sue rides the bus from her home in the south end of Seattle. And I know that they will always, always exclaim after I finish how wonderful my playing was (whether it was or not). 

Last Friday Sue placed an envelope on the piano as I played. When music and dinner were done, I began to open the envelope, anticipating a Christmas card. 

“Careful,” Sue cautioned. Tucked inside the card was the five-dollar bill. 

“I can’t …” I began. 

“Stop!” Sue interrupted. “It’s a gift! You can’t refuse a gift. I wouldn’t give it if I couldn’t afford it.” 

I’ve occasionally supplemented my income with piano and organ gigs. But no payment could top the handwritten message in the card: “To our piano player who myself and Susan love to hear your beautiful music while we have our dinner. You make us feel so comfortable and Happy. From your friends, Sue and Susan”

We talked a little longer. Sue is celebrating that her son just got out of jail, where he spent seven months. It was his girlfriend who got him in trouble, says Sue.

“I told him! No more girlfriend!”

After they left, I handed the five dollars to Mick, who runs the Kitchen, and told him the story. “This was from OUR folks?” he asked, mildly disbelieving. Then he smiled.

Whenever I’m given a gift of cash, I like to tell the giver how I used the money. I’ll enjoy telling Sue — and she’ll enjoy hearing — that I spent her gift on a new book of music that I’ve been wanting. Music that she and others will soon be hearing.

Wait a minute, you may be saying. You gave the money to the Kitchen. Yeah, well, money is an illusion. Gifts from the heart are the real thing. There’s no limit to how much love they can buy.

A Few Steps to Compassion

On By Mary KochIn Uncategorized2 Comments

I stepped from the little neighborhood shoe shop on East Madison Street, breaking in my brand new pair of Brooks (well cushioned for walking). Maybe that’s why I took special notice of the shoes on the young person who was passed out on the sidewalk in the next block. 

The sidewalk slightly  narrows in that block, making room for venerable trees that are the legacy of an earlier, possibly more gracious generation. The narrower sidewalk makes it an inconvenient place for passing out. Inconvenient for other pedestrians, that is.

In downtown Seattle, where sidewalks are really wide, the pedestrian flow is uninterrupted by the occasional drugged body languishing on the concrete. There’s room for all, and for some it’s the only room available. Away from downtown on Madison, pedestrians had to sidestep to the curb, pausing to let oncoming walkers by. We almost needed a flagger, like at a highway construction site. We politely made room for each other, seemingly oblivious to the obstruction we were avoiding.

I remember the first time — in the early days of the fentanyl epidemic — I came upon someone passed out on the ground in broad daylight. It was in Omak, the small eastern Washington town that I moved from last year. I was on my daily walk with my dogs in the park along the river. When I saw the man sprawled out on the grass, I pulled out my phone and called 9-1-1. To call 9-1-1 these days, whether in that small town or this big city, would be a gesture of naiveté and probably futile.

Perhaps we pedestrians pretended to ignore the human obstruction because it would be unseemly to stop and stare at someone who is suffering a personal crisis in such a public way. Still, as I edged to the curb (my balance assured with those new shoes), I noticed a few things.

The individual was not supine but in a contorted position, halfway between sitting and curled. Gender and race were undetectable, but youth was apparent along with stylish clothing and shoes. The black shoes were of that exaggerated, clunky platform style with the highest of heels. I could imagine their wearer getting carefully dressed, preparing for a … well, high time.

A lot of people are afraid to walk in the city these days. I too am afraid. I’m afraid that I will become so accustomed to inert bodies on the sidewalk that I will stop seeing them. I fear that I will stop noticing their humanity, their individuality — expressed in small, simple ways, like a pair of shoes. I’m afraid I will stop feeling the deep sorrow in my heart, that I will cease breathing a silent prayer of compassion. Each and every time.

I have no insights, no magic one-size-fits-all policy to suggest as we confront the intertwined issues of poverty, drugs, mental illness and homelessness. But there is a way out of this snarled tangle of hopelessness. Once we rid ourselves of disgust, judgment and indifference, what remains for those of us who are still walking around is the power of love.

There was a fellow human being on that sidewalk who, just like me, desires a good pair of shoes.