The first time, I passed her on Ontario Street on my way home. Mid-50s, sitting on the floor in an anonymous lobby begging for alms. Tears had had time to moisten a face marked by pain, despair and, difficult to camouflage, bruises among the wrinkles. Getting off my bike, I approached her to find out what I could do for her. Being her father’s age, I allowed myself to speak to her informally.
” What’s your name ? » A hoarse cry, from the depths of a lost mind. “I don’t care, it’s no use, I don’t have a name anymore!” I no longer exist! » To hide a suffering face behind his hands.
I had difficulty understanding as the anger tinged the words. It was so incoherent that I thought it best to move away to make the emergency call. Without thinking of calling a center for abused women instead. At the end of the line, I was reassured that a patrol would be dispatched quickly. Her name ? I wanted to fill the void.
Angel… her name is Angel.
I was surprised and hung up to find the bike, choosing to return on foot, seized with a rare emotion.
When I got home, comfortable, fridge full, I wondered if it had helped her to share her pain. Response from my inner voice as brief as it is sad. Help ? She doesn’t believe it anymore… A heartbreaker for a destitute witness.
A few years, Covid among others, later, returning from a series of stops on foot on my street, I recently found her practicing the only exercise with meaning, a pleading hand on which her gaze was fixed. Was it the same woman as she was so disfigured without age being the only factor? Indifferent to the cool weather, she had bundled herself up in clothes that I doubted would be effective. Having approached her without disturbing her, I waited for the reverie, which managed to calm features that had been able to seduce in other times, I wanted to believe, to slide towards me.
“Hello, Ange, do you remember me? » This name came spontaneously from a memory marked by the ordeal. “What did you call me?” »
“Well I… it came out on its own… I don’t know. » She had this way of staring at me which brought her back to her reverie and which brought our gazes together where nothing mattered except the union of two minds.
” You allow ? » I asked her and sat down next to her as I took action. So I opened my backpack to extract the first bit of food suitable to be enjoyed on site. Yum ! The sausage that I hand him. “Taste this for me.” No knife, just bite in! »
His gaze had just been short-circuited. “I can’t, I don’t have teeth…” The art of being betrayed by destiny. Looking sheepish, I reached into the bag to grab the first yogurt, but his hand had just rested on my arm. “It doesn’t matter…I’m not really hungry. I’m waiting for the time to go eat at the homeless women’s center over there. »
A silence…
“Maybe I have an idea.” » She looked at me with a frown. ” You trust me ? » She agreed without hesitation, and I stood up, offering her my hand, which she took without getting up, but bending down I kissed it before she could react. “Count on me, never two without three, we’ll see each other again!” »
With the bag on my back, I left her with a beautiful smile and a promise. “Goodbye, Ange, see you soon!” »
As soon as I got home, I transcribed to the Federal Minister of Health, Mark Holland, the letter that I had just composed while walking to tell him about my decisive meeting with my new friend and how free dental care was a good thing for old people like me, except a desperate omission of an essential service for a category of citizens, as if we were limited to treating all teeth except the central incisors. Little metaphor in passing.
Because you see, Mr. Minister, as long as we subsidize the care of this part of the elderly clientele who has the means to consult dentists at their leisure, it would be more judicious to carry out a more thoughtful exchange between the latter and the part more or less visible to society, of which nothing in a day, from waking up to going to bed, causes one to smile. Especially with the appearance of teething. I bet that the calculation of this modification of the budget devoted to the new law will, for your government, reveal the political advantages which would be beneficial to you, seeing the current polls.
Finally, and on behalf of our aptly named friend Ange, just one addition would change the situation for her and her peers regarding eligibility for the Canadian Dental Care Plan. Let’s put ourselves in her shoes, eating the soup of the day in the company of her sisters. All deprived of the four conditions entitling them to the federal gift: dental insurance, a net income (imaginary), Canadian citizenship (which is not proven to them in fact) and (the icing on the absurd) a tax return.
But why on earth is this group of humans so ostracized in a self-proclaimed democratic, secular, parity and, supposedly, egalitarian society, whose definition aims for civil, political and social equality? Find the mistake. Allow me, in closing, Mr Minister, to quote this proverbial sentence from my friend Shakespeare, but replacing the point with a question mark.
Is there something… unfinished (let’s be polite) in the kingdom of Canadanmark?
Thank you for your attention. Up to you.