There is a big theme in the newsletter about homelessness. This word which is so easily combined with wandering, distrust, suffering, loss of belonging. But these are just words. Homelessness, this tiny word of five syllables, but which carries so much meaning in a life situation that has none. Homelessness is so many words that hurt the soul, prostitution, drug addiction, various mental and physical health disorders, isolation, violence suffered or expressed on a daily basis, crime.
For parents and families of people experiencing homelessness, of which I have been a part for several years, it means wondering, when the cold weather comes, where your child will sleep. It’s also being invaded on a Saturday, at 3 a.m., by the thought that a customer is perhaps at the same time offering himself a privileged service with the person you carried in your womb. That he will look at her with an empty heart. It’s the gaze of strangers that falls on this child that you love so much and who only sees this body damaged by the sidewalk and park benches.
My daughter would tell you that it’s the looks of passers-by that hurt her the most on a daily basis. The injury of prostitution being at least paid. And to succeed in offering ourselves body and body to this stranger, we freeze ourselves, and to freeze ourselves, we offer ourselves.
Being that parent who watches their child disappear into the madness of this life also means dealing with the verb to do. What did we do to get here? Or what haven’t we done? What can you do when everything you’ve done hasn’t worked? At what point should we give up our arms, these arms that have carried us from birth until today. That we kept up until we no longer felt our own pain. Until the day we felt we had to give up, for a moment or for all time.
Sometimes I tell myself that I would like to start from the beginning, put her back close to my heart, in safety, gently bring her back to the light of the world and try to change the path she has taken.
I would like to explain to her the turmoil of my soul, but she can no longer listen to the pain of others, because she has her own suffering, so deep that it is only the sound of her being that she hears from now on.
So, when I hear the pragmatic news on TV which announce social changes aimed at helping these thousands of people experiencing homelessness, which state cold statistics, which reflect this harsh reality, I don’t know what to think. I feel the approaching winter, which will add another blanket over these frozen souls. And I know that despite this Homelessness Summit held in September, they will soon be cold. She will be cold soon.
But if I’m telling you all this, it’s not so that you throw a $5 into a palm outstretched towards you. It’s not for you to give me a thumbs up in the corner of my little note. This is so that one day, if you come across a homeless person at the corner of a street in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, for example, you offer them a human and compassionate look. And, why not, a smile.
For Vanessa.