Cruising through facebook, and through groups in my network I found this link, and I was compelled to write a tribute to this man.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4950671831
At least once a week, I’d see this guy wandering the neighbourhood, sometimes sober, quite often not…
I don’t always give out change, but for him I did quite frequently. As some of my old friends and family know, I was a teenage runaway in my late teens and lived on the streets both here in Calgary and in Vancouver for a short time.
It was a gritty nasty existence, and it separates you from the rest of the world. The scorn and the derision in many peoples eyes, separates you from society even further. Street kids are lucky, it is easier to leave the life behind. I was lucky, that life is a small part of the experience I’ve lived.
It is also easier to leave when you aren’t addicted to drugs and alcohol. It becomes a cycle, you drink and do drugs to escape the streets, and you can’t escape the streets because of drink and drugs.
For people like “Caveman” - the only exit is death. I told caveman, that I used to be a street kid, and I would give him some pocket change, knowing well it was going to drink. I’d talk to him, and he’d always kiss me on the cheek to say thank you.
When I’d him in the morning on the LRT platform, I’d say hello and he wouldn’t always ask for change, but other mornings when I asked him how he was, he’d say he only had enough money for Lysol - I’d give him change and we’d chat.
When I’d see him in the evenings, sometimes he was sober, sometimes he was drunk, and when he was sober, he’d say hello, and I’d give him change and we’d chat.
One of the last times I saw him must have been around his death. I saw him drunker than a skunk as he was walking past the pub I was at while I was having a cigarette. Knowing well the bar doesn’t want the homeless hanging outside their doors (all businesses feel the same way - it does scare paying customers), I walked down a little further, closer to the art gallery, I always talked to him.
I gave him what I had in my change purse - about 75 cents and got a hug from him. He was talkative that day and told me he was so tired of it, and nobody cared, and nobody gave a shit who hadn’t been there. I told him, I knew, and I was so sorry.
It is a despicable life, and in many cases one without escape. Many people may think it wrong that I gave him change, since it was going to drink more likely than not.
Just ask yourself, if you were sleeping in shelters, or in parks on benches, would you not want to drink enough to forget that? If most people looked at you like you were less than a stray dog, would you not drink to forget that? If you had to live on the charity of others, and you thought you could never quit drinking long enough to make a living, would you not want to drink to forget that?
Now imagine being Caveman, who was living like that for maybe as long as 20 years. He no longer needs a drink, he is at rest. He was a good person, in immeasurable pain.
When I talked with him, he often shared those feelings, Caveman was a man, full of pain, a pain so deep in the soul that most people can not even fathom those depths.
There are often no obituaries for street people, and many times people don’t even notice when one is gone. And now Caveman is gone, I say from my heart Rest in Peace.
