This morning was a pretty slow day at work: my supervisor was out for the morning, another person I needed to talk to was out sick, and no one was answering my emails. After keeping myself busy for a few hours, I decided to take an early lunch, hoping that by the time I finished my supervisor would be back. I walked through the city for a half an hour and then traveled back to Unity.
I walked through my office door to find a man sitting at my officemate's desk. As I walked through the door he said "good afternoon," with his back to me. I responded with a cheerful "good afternoon." As I did, he turned around and extended his hand to me for a proper greeting. It was clear he was blind, but in case I didn't catch on, the next thing he said was, "I'm blind if you haven't noticed." He went on to tell me his story.
He was a veteran. Shot in the side of the head with a pistol, the doctors warned his family that he only had a few hours to live. Four and a half months in a coma, a full frontal lobotomy, and twenty years later, he's still going strong. Well, kind of strong. He is homeless and struggles with easy tasks due to his blindness and struggle to walk well. However despite his physical disabilities, he had the most beautiful mind and insights I've ever encountered.
"I see more clearly than people that have seen their whole lives," he said to me. And quickly enough, this became apparent. He started making jokes about blind people, and although at first I felt a little guilty laughing, he insisted that he kept going, and I'm glad he did.
"I've made people laugh when they have been crying for two straight weeks," he said. "I have everything: ADHD, PTSD, lmnop... you name it, but I live my life through making people smile."
He then went on to talk to me about people who pretend to want to change the world, and feel better about themselves for putting five cents in a jar on the weekend. "Five cents doesn't buy happiness," he said. He described these kinds of people as "weekend lovers." "God doesn't want a weekend lover, he wants a full-time spouse," he said. "It doesn't make you a christian if you put change in the cup one day, but you're a bastard the rest of the week."
He then commended me for the work I'm doing: "I can tell you're a see-er, not a looker. Everyone can look, but you really see," he said. This is why I do what I do. I work for next to nothing, and people tell me I'm crazy, but hearing him say that to me was more satisfying than any amount of cash could ever be.
Despite his intellect and insights, his case was a tough one. He said he was either "too poor or not crazy enough" for most shelters. He said his chart is 3 feet thick, but he has no where that will take him. He's been turned down for being blind, for not being able to work, for having seizures from substance abuse, etc. My coworker also told him he couldn't go to one shelter because he wasn't HIV positive, in which he responded, "well, give me a few minutes and I'll go catch some AIDS real quick." And although it's not normally funny to joke about AIDS, this guy has been pitched several dozens of curve balls, and I felt it was appropriate for him to make inappropriate jokes to deal with the pain. Plus, he made me laugh, which is his self-declared purpose in life.
He is also an artist. He used to live for painting and drawing, and said it kills him he can't do those things anymore. Instead he resorts to non-visual forms of arts: poetry, rap, music. He recited my coworker and I a poem he had written back at the turn of the Millennium, and man, it was beautiful.
Although my coworker wasn't able to place him anywhere, or give him any real solid starting points, he thanked her and said "my world's a better place for you being in it," just because she tried to help. He explained that she was a real human being: "There's a difference between human beings and people," he said, "you all make the stars shine in the sky."
After all of his warmhearted joke crackings and unfathomably great conversation, I almost forgot why he was there, and that he had been so troubled, until my coworker asked him if there was some way we could reach him if we came across something. "I doubt it," he said. And I quickly came to my senses--he had no home, no phone, no email address, no sight. But despite his hardships, he still gave my coworker the only thing in his pocket that would suffice as a "thank you," an apple.
As he was leaving, he made one last joke to me and said, "you look like the type of girl I could spend the rest of my life with, ciao bella." I wished him good luck, and he chuckled a bit and responded, "sure, why not?" Which broke my heart.
As my coworker served as a crutch for him as he walked out, and opened the door for him, his last words before he left the office were, "see, chivalry's not dead."
People like this defy logic. He was told he would never see again, but he sees with his heart. He was told he would never walk again, but he walks slowly. He was told he'd never have sex again, but his son is turning twelve soon. He was told he wouldn't live, but he's full of life.
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