I am not sure how old I was that horrible afternoon...somewhere between 7 years and 9 years old? My family had spent an eventless day grocery shopping and weighted down with food, we trudged up the stairs to our pretty little apartment on the second floor of an old farm house. While my mom's boyfriend, my older brother and I plopped down in front of the TV, my mom began putting away groceries. Seconds later, the quiet air was pierced by my mom's terrified, astoundingly loud screams. We stared at her as though she had suddenly sprouted horns for precious seconds before her message sunk in.. "FIRE!!" A thick dark smoke had begun billowing out from the cabinets below the kitchen sink and we jumped to our feet, racing back down the steps from which we had just come..only this time with nothing in our hands.
We lost almost everything, most notably our home, and what wasn't ruined held a bitter smell of smoke as a permanent reminder of that day. As my family has never been one to save for a rainy day, we had no savings or resources to fall back on and relied on the charity of those in the community who had read about our poor unfortunate circumstances in the local newspaper. In the days and weeks following the fire and before raising enough money for a security deposit on a new apartment, we lived in various sketchy motels. My memories of that time are restricted to teaching myself to swim by jumping into the deep end of the Motel 6 pool (my backstroke technique is still severely flawed) and sitting on the bathroom floor at the Dekalb Motel, tracing the path of the ants meandering across the cracked tile. Life had fallen into a strange sort of purgatory like existence.
However, we were so blessedly rich. We had walked away with our lives and amazingly, even our pet mouse, whose cage had been conveniently located next to an open window, had survived. The same could not be said for the occupants of the downstairs apartment. The young mother, after drinking through the day, had passed out on her bed, leaving her two little boys unattended to play with a lighter. After starting the fire, the fearful little boys hid in a closet where the firemen later found them. They had not survived. The mom, suffering horrible effects of smoke inhalation and burns held on mere hours longer...long enough for doctors to realize that she was pregnant. Her devastated husband had lost his home and his entire family while he was at work that cruel day. As I said before...my family was exceedingly rich.
Many years have passed and as the fire has become a vague shadowy memory, so too have the lessons learned. I have had lapses in my perspective on wealth, foolishly thinking that I didn't have enough or needed more, be it a bigger house, a more expensive car etc.. But each time I feel as though I am losing touch, I find myself knocked rudely back into the knowledge of my relative wealth. Rather than comparing myself to the wealthiest and coming up woefully short, I have begun comparing myself to those in need.. thus forcing myself to examine the tenuous thread of circumstance that separates us. People are sleeping under a bridge two blocks from my home, how dare I feel as though I don't have enough..?
I have visited the people under the Wilson/ Lakeshore bridge three times now. The first time, I dropped off cookies and bananas and shook the hand of a friendly old woman tucked under approximately 30 layers of old blankets. The second time, there were no people there, but their piles of blankets remained, waiting for them to return from their wanderings for the night. I tucked baggies of cookies into each pile of blankets, got in my car and headed north on Lakeshore to teach. The last time I visited was Christmas Eve. Earlier in the week, I had visited a few resale shops in search of like-new gloves, scarfs and fleeces. After hitting the jackpot at a local thrift shop called "Unique," I raced home with a pile of fleece jackets (and a 'new' pair of awesome black rain boots for myself..) loaded up the washing machine and ended the night with ten brightly wrapped Downy fresh smelling Christmas gifts. While on our way to midnight mass, my husband and I stopped to hide gifts within the blankets under the bridge.
Uptown has been nice, quiet and gunshot free in the past week...as far as I know. However, I have still felt the overwhelming need to roll up my sleeves and get to work. Providing me with an outlet, Cornerstone Community Outreach is an organization that has undertaken the enormous task of feeding and sheltering Uptown's homeless population. Each day, approximately 400 men, woman and Yes, children, eat and sleep under CCO's benevolent roof. Tucked away, just a half a block from Truman College's front door, Cornerstone differs from other shelters in that they have separate floors for separate needs; a floor for single women, another for single men and even 35 private family rooms. While most shelters tend to separate, men from woman and children (men being defined as males over 12 years,) Cornerstone strives to maintain the integrity of the family unit, keeping men together with their partners and their children. Despite being run by the christian organization, "Jesus People," Cornerstone does not force the gospel on those it helps. Rather, each person is fed, clothed, given a bed and assigned a case worker. I volunteered for a few hours yesterday, unloading a truck of donated food alongside high school kids from Green Bay, A Logan Square man with his daughters and granddaughter, Philip, a master organizer, and a group of the usual kitchen staff. While chatting away, I asked a strong black man who was constantly taking cases of canned green beans from my hands, how long he had been working at Cornerstone. He responded with a broad smile while nodding towards the people waiting for their food, "I used to be in that line."
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