Bent Hope. Tim J Huff
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contemporary symbol of Canadiana from farm gates to skyscrapers, coast to coast. It was filled with change.
Dimes, pennies, nickels, quarters and the Canadian coins that make panhandling a tad more promising—one dollar “loonies” and two dollar “toonies.” They rattled and slid side-to-side just below the brim as he shook his hand proudly. I looked at him curiously as he waved the cup in front of me, gesturing for me to take it. He grinned wide, enjoying the suspense he held over me. His smile was toothy and bright, and his eyes were more alive than I had ever seen them.
Finally, with his other hand, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of ribbed cardboard, about the size of a shoebox top. He held it beside the coffee cup, only inches from my face.
With poetic beauty, in big scratchy letters created by the feverish dedication of scribbling a ballpoint back and forth over and over again, it read:
“For Katrina’s homeless, because it hurts to lose everything.”
The help he wanted? For me to take him to the bank. Just to make sure they would let him in so he could give it to the teller. That was it.
So I did. I took him. There was a long line. We waited for our turn, taking small steps every few minutes through the velvet-rope maze. The people in front of us and behind us kept a ridiculous distance away. Thomas pretended not to notice.
Finally we were next. He placed the cup on the counter in front of the teller. She looked down at it and wrinkled up her nose. Then looked up at him. Bewildered, she cocked her head and glanced at me. I tugged the sign out of Thomas’s back pocket and laid it on the counter beside the cup. The teller’s eyes welled up, and she smiled gently. She lifted the cup carefully with both hands and nodded.
“Can you add it to what’s been collected,” Thomas asked like a wide-eyed little boy.
“I will,” the teller promised softly. “Yes, I will.”
We turned. We walked away.
This is Thomas’s story. This is who Thomas is. Who he really is. This is who I need to be, who we all need to be. This is the personification of Kierkegaard’s brilliant and simple description of hope; a boy—a boy with nothing to his name—passionate about the possibility of making a difference. Regardless of the circumstances and obstacles.
The hot days grew cool, and the cool days grew cold. Thomas braved the change of seasons with a sense of newness. Something changed inside of him when his heart broke for others, regardless of his own plight. In his own brokenness he found his identity. Thomas found the best of who he was, and refused to ignore it. The best of who God had made him. An authentic, beautiful identity that people spend a lifetime looking for. One only ever found by sacrificing. No one needed the money in that coffee cup more than Thomas.
He took independent steps towards wellness. He began saying quirky and inspirational things like “God has a plan, y’know?” At first just to tease and appease me, for sure. But not much time passed before he said it with conviction. He secured a room all on his own. Then a better room and some financial assistance. Then some work. All without my help. God had led me to do but one important thing early in the process. That one thing was simply to be in the presence of Thomas’s astounding compassion and generosity. To receive the gift of knowing and being with Thomas. Ultimately, just to stand beside a poor boy in front of a total stranger while he gladly surrendered his tiny portion of wealth.
Thomas moved himself west just before Christmas. All with his own earned resources. He wanted to follow some hunches on his sister’s whereabouts.
But two weeks before he left I saw him sitting outside of Toronto’s world-class Hospital For Sick Children. I was surprised to see him there. It wasn’t his common turf, and he had not needed to wait on loose change for some time.
The snow was falling lightly, the moment fixed for Norman Rockwell. I stopped about two meters in front of Thomas when my eyes caught sight of the little sign resting beside the coffee cup in front of his crossed legs:
“Donations for Sick Kids. No one should ever lose a sister.”
It wasn’t about the money. He had his own. It was about giving other people the opportunity to participate in hope as he understood it. It was about Thomas’s own turnabout, what triggered it, and his wanting to make it contagious.
Some saw a beggar sitting outside the hospital that day. Some were sure they saw a scam. Many paid no mind as they trudged past a typical downtown object, a cityscape prop on par with a fire hydrant, park bench or trash can. Very few saw one made in the image of God. And none suspected a passion for what is possible.
Most people walking by, if they took notice at all, just saw a kid and a coffee cup.
But there was so much more.
There always is. Always.
2. Left Hand: October 2003
Raised scars on young wrists have haunted me for years. Lamentably, I know too much. The opportunity to literally and figuratively “read between the lines” has not been lost on me.
A series of tiny slender tracks, criss-crossed along the fleshy part of the forearm, front or back—a desperate call for someone to take notice, or just the desire to feel something. Anything.
Shallow lines that widen from the outside of an upturned wrist to the inside—an in-progress decisiveness to take it seriously.
The reverse, wide to shallow, means fear in the final moments.
When I met her, there was no mistaking these tragic scars and trails. Aggressive long thick lines running diagonally from the base of the thumb, six inches towards the elbow. Instantly, two things were certain.
One: right-hand scars reveal a left-handed cutter. Likely a lefty all ’round.
Two: I am in the presence of a miracle. These are the scars of someone who meant business. And still, somehow, she has life.
Fifteen years old. Timidly petitioning for spare change from strangers, with nothing more than her presence. Little more than a child, sleeping among the fattened gutter rats that creep in and out of the sewers of Chinatown. And dressed in the third-hand beaten wares of women on the street three and four times her age.
There are endless questions that haunt all street and inner-city relief workers: Who is she? Whose is she? And how much more hurt does she have to endure in these years that are meant to be the green years of anticipation and innocence?
As I drew near, I could see four university students in matching varsity jackets gathering around her. They were drunk. Very, very drunk. While I sped into a full run I could see them nudging her with their knees, taunting her, and challenging her to respond. Sitting low on the chipped concrete, with her shoulders folded inward, she did nothing and said nothing. But they persisted, eager in their inebriation for mindless entertainment. A cruel synergy set in motion by the heartless belligerence of total intoxication. My pace quickened. My heart was pounding like a hammer. Her defiance to respond reshaped their foolish laughter into tribal anger. Racing through the staggered traffic, I was barely halfway to my destination when I could see mimicking gestures of the unimaginable. Within seconds they were no longer gestures, but performed acts. Snarling and grunting, one of them undid the front of his pants and began urinating on her, while the others cheered him on. She leaned forward over her knees. Her yellow hair tumbled around her shoulders as she simply hung her head to protect her eyes from the stinging pain of physical and emotional abuse.
Consumed by an anger I cannot remember before or since, I arrived throwing punches like I had never imagined. Awkward, fitful punches. A graceless flailing reminiscent of the panicked playground defenses that children use against bullies in elementary school. Hits and misses, anywhere and everywhere. All that the dripping child sitting motionless among us would know for sure, if nothing else, that she was valid of complete outrage.
The entire scenario was disgusting. Drunk and sober humanity graphically revealing every ugly thing but peace. Blood. Drool. Urine. An outreach worker with no recollection of how