There is something so haunting about watching Rosa walk
away…so sad, so empty…so grey. What was
it??? Her story had touched my heart so much.
Bumping along in the truck to take her back to the place which she
called home…. It wasn’t a home, it was a wooded area outside of town, near the
park. It was a place near the path people walked along to get their
daily exercise in. This was not a home
for humans, it was a home for squirrels, chipmunks, skunks, deer, raccoons,
beavers, fish, spiders, rats, mice, wild dogs, coyotes, and possibly bears, but
it was not a home for people.
However, Since it was freezing cold smack in the middle of
winter, bears were probably out of the question. Rosa shared the insanity of her previous home. She described the unpredictable violence of
her mother’s borderline personality disorder, the suicidal depression of her
teenage children who reside there, and the controlling/violent ways of her
children’s father. In all… it was too
much to take. A life time of this
environment had made it unbearable to face any longer therefore the environment
that surrounded me now as I sat warm and comfy in the pick up, didn’t seem to
phase her at all. As a matter of fact,
it was inviting and comforting to Rosa compared to the hell she left.
The vision of Rosa walking away from me still haunts me though. It has been so cold here the last few weeks
dipping down into the teens. Rosa needed
under clothes like tights or long johns, but we didn’t have them this
week. We had some warm sweaters and a
few things that might help, but I promised her I would try and come up with
some for next week. In the days that
followed as I drove along the highway to work, I could not shake the thought of
her sleeping out in her tent… with all of the other outdoor creatures.
Each night I take our dog Marley outside in the back yard multiple
times to go to the bathroom. As I stand
under the dark hazy night sky with the crisp cold air sneaking around the edges
of the blanket that was flung over my shoulders-I think to myself, “Maybe it
wouldn’t be too bad if you were stuck outside for the night. Within a very short while, that nonsense is
cast from my mind. It is freezing out and there is no way that I would ever
want to try and make it.
Rosa shared with me that teenagers often come down by the
river on weekend nights to party and often stroll over to visit with Rosa. They think it would be so great to be
homeless, to live by the river and party whenever they felt like it. Rosa tells them that it isn’t all fun and
games. “It’s hard, really hard out
here,” she shares with a bowed head as she opened the truck door. Her cold dirty fingers grasped the clear plastic box filled to the brim with
clothes and food we had given her for the coming week. The empty lot that I dropped Rosa off in was
desolate, nobody in sight. She called
out, “Thank you” over her shoulder and headed off to the far corner of the lot
where a little cement path curved around the small lake. As I drove away I saw Rosa standing with her
heavy box sitting on a concrete bench resting before she walked on. Rosa was dipping her hand into the plastic
Ziplock bag filled with left over popcorn from my daughter’s previous night’s
sleepover. I figured that I liked cold
leftover popcorn, maybe she would also.
Rosa returned to her tent alone since her companion would not
be finished with the few hours of work that he was able to find for a
while. She was alone, but safe. It was better than the other option of
returning to her mother’s home. I am
sure that I only know a slice of the whole story, but what I do know is that
there is a woman close to my own age who has chosen to live outside in the
middle of the winter with little food and no running water because it is a
better place than the place that she left.
God instructs us……Love not judge……I am slowly learning to do this. "Dear Lord, thank you for working on my heart... for giving me grace as I try and make sense of the whole idea of "love not judge". In Jesus' Holy Name, Amen
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