Paper Heart

Poverty is poverty, and coming back to America doesn't mean I see any less of it.  In fact, one of the best things about being back is resuming my biweekly volunteer sessions at a wonderful organization: Boston Health Care for the Homeless Program.  Every other week, I spend a Sunday afternoon at the respite center stringing beads or making tie-die with homeless patients sick enough to need medical care but not sick enough to be in the hospital.

It's always bittersweet walking through the door, because while it's nice to get to know the patients, you're always a little sad to see folks still there week after week.  You hope they get their own homes, or their wounds heal, or their circumstances improve enough for them to move on.  Whenever a patient tells me, "I won't see you again! I'm getting out next week!", my unequivocal reaction is, "Good!"

Today I made necklaces with a patient who had definitely been with the program a while, but who I mostly remembered as a guy liking to hoard craft supplies.  Patients don't always remember me, but this guy did.  "Where have you been?" he asked.

"I was abroad," I said.  "India."

His face lit up.  "I am half Indian!" he said.  "And half Pakistani!  And I've been all over."  He then listed thirty or forty countries around the globe which he'd seen.  He honestly listed more countries than I think I could even name off the top of my head.  Turns out, he'd been in the Marines, and he'd gone on a few tours to far-off places.  He spent the rest of the afternoon asking me laundry lists of questions.  "Do you speak Hindi?  Do you watch Bollywood?  Did you go shopping? Did you see the Taj?"

Before I left, he made me get out the construction paper so he could make me something special.  Just from memory, he started folding up an origami heart.  Then, he handed it to me: a present.  He told me that, if he had glue, he would have stuck sequins and stickers and fancy designs all over it. I said, "Well, why not keep working on it and give it to me when I come back?"

He said, no.  He hopes he will not be at the center two weeks from now.

I hope not, too.  May we not meet again, sir.