The Unforgotten

You could expect him every day around the same time.  It didn’t matter whether it was 100 degrees in the shade or 28 with sleet and freezing rain.  Chi-Chi, as he had come to be called in the street, would come through the door to receive his daily provisions.  Other homeless men around him would ridicule his vocabulary as most of it was born of his own construction.  Nobody really knew what he was saying but most nodded in agreement to whatever he uttered dismissing it as nonsense.  One particular day I felt the front door open as my skin was ravaged by the wintery wind which assaulted the desk where I was sitting sending papers scurrying across the floor.  While retrieving the strewn papers and mopping the contents of my freshly brewed cup of hot cocoa from the surface of my desk I heard the familiar greeting:  “kaluto!”  Chi-Chi was easily recognized, not only by his chosen mode of communication but by his signature saunter when he walked.  His left foot was deformed, a souvenir from the Vietnam War.   His left arm, somewhat withered, would be tucked close to his side as he stumbled his way down the sidewalk and up the steps to collect his daily meal consisting of peanut butter and donated bread.  It wasn’t uncommon to hear choice obscenities hurled at him from passing cars or other pedestrians.  You probably know his “type,” the kind you make an extra effort to avoid in order to circumvent any feeling of responsibility.  It seems to be a typical reaction to people of his ilk, as hard as that is to write.  We all have our comfort zones and I will admit his persona was the sort that generally left a person feeling uneasy or uncomfortable.   I quickly replied to his announced arrival with “wintago malsupa,” his howling laughter filled the room.  Our charted exchange was like the hundred before it as he bowed in appreciation for the grub and headed back toward the tundra-like conditions awaiting him outside.  I had just experienced another encounter with one who was a national hero, a purple-heart recipient; an honored vet.  Those last words haunt me: “honored vet.” 

This was the last time I would see Chi-Chi.  The temperature that night dipped into the single digits and tauntingly teased sub-zero conditions.  News spread throughout the community the following morning that someone had fallen victim to the elements under the overpass just off of E. Lee Street.  Chi-Chi was found dead, frozen and alone. 

You never know when you will be given the opportunity to experience the last moment in someone’s life or even when your own moment will arrive.  Sometimes I sicken myself as I drive down the road complaining of the commute to work, the long hours and traffic jams.  “If the idiot in front of me would drive faster I could get home and get on with the evening!”  Why the urgency?  I need to “relax” in front of the tube and watch “my programs” or drown the aggravations of the daily grind in some other form of non-reality.  Why I choose to spend the best years of my life on things that do not exist while I ignore people, (yes, people) who do exist and disregard them as if they didn’t is beyond me.  I need to purge my life and re-evaluate the energy I spend on empty living. To disregard someone is ultimate disrespect.  Actually, it is worse than that.  To disrespect something is still validating its existence.  To disregard something is to treat it as unworthy of regard, or notice, as if it did not exist. How many homeless people do I see on any given day?  How many do I acknowledge?  Want to make someone’s day?  The next time you see someone holding a sign take 5 minutes and talk to the person.  You don’t have to give them any money, just give them some of your time.  This senseless pandemic of the disregarded will be eliminated on the fields of sacrificial servitude but stimulated in the towers of self-indulgent gratification.    Father, open my eyes that I might see; open my heart that I might bleed the same compassion that brought you to me.