someday.........

messy heart

He's a "product" of the social services system in the 70's. Abandoned by his mother at age 3, along with his brother a year old, he was locked into the house with a bag of marshmallows thrown at them just before the door was slammed shut to sustain them until his father came looking.

The terror has never left him. Actually, the terror continued to accumulate......one physically and emotionally abusive foster parent at a time.......one neglectful experience after another.......his father was too ill to care for the little boys, and died when this man was 9 years old. On the day of his father's funeral, the scarred little 9 year old boy got drunk for the first time.

Alcohol was the most accessible self-medication..........he filled cheeze-whiz jars and took them to school...........he sniffed airplane glue from bread bags. He remained psychologically numb and stoned to survive........... sometimes he lashed out with such rage that everyone thought he was crazy.

A friend of their father's took pity, and tried time and again to provide some semblance of order and normalcy through shelter and warmth and food......but by then the boys were out of control. Children's services was often called to intervene by finding yet another foster home where abuse was rampant.

Now, the little boy is a 43 year old recluse who lives in a shack not far from the centre of the city. No running water, no toilet facilities......no sink........trash bags and empty plastic containers are piled high in the dooryard. The stench from his home of 7 years is so rank that it fills the inside of my nose seemingly permanently. And I'm sitting outside. He tells me he doesn't want me to see the rotting mess inside. I look at the front of this shack which is 20 years past its due date and can't believe someone has been living in it for 7 long years.

So, we begin our conversation......outside in the warm warm sun........sitting on sturdy metal and arborite kitchen chairs made a generation ago, surrounded by trash and empty beer bottles. Between us is an amplifier and his guitar........an extension cord reaching out through the ripped screened front door......flapping in the breeze...... we ignore the trash, the waste, the falling down shack.......we tune out the incessantly yappy dog who lives next door.

He tells me parts of his story.........the reasons behind his diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder, social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia........claustrophobia......physical pain from old fights and car accidents.....he shares some of his pain..........he looks twice his age.

I listen, encouraging him to tell me his story, but wondering how much of it I can absorb. It's just so horrible.

Somewhere along the way, we find a common ground in writing. This man is a poet and a song writer. He loves to write letters........40 page letters to his sister who lives in Ontario. Their mother took her and left him behind at age 3. His sister has stored all of his writing for him in a safe filing cabinet.........scores of paper filled with his thoughts, his angst, his ideas, his life.

He used to be in a band until the home he was living in 7 years ago burned to the ground shattering his already shattered psyche. Now, he can't cope with crowds or others around. He must live alone......he must generate his own tune.....his own pace. His medication allows him to find some balance, though he is now afraid of becoming addicted......."tethered" he states......to the psychotic drugs.

No one or nothing will control him again........he will go to his own beat.............never again will he feel cornered or emotionally bound. He never wants to feel trapped or addicted.

He writes and writes and writes.........we agree that writing is a stimulant.........and then he cycles out into the countryside everyday to feel the wind on his face.......to feel the elusive freedom he craves........He is a complicated broken man with a fighting spirit who despite his reclusivity, he wants to talk..........to make sense of it all................yes.

After an hour and a half, my intuition tells me to wrap it up.....too many half-buried stories....too much reminiscing........rage may start surfacing.......

I explain the disability application process to him........the premise of our meeting....... and then we say goodbye. I tell him genuinely how glad I am that we met.........how brave he is......how creative.......

Then, I get into my car to drive to my next appointment feeling drained overwhelmed and angry at a system that completely failed this man....angry at families and how deplorable they can be to one another....angry at the inhumanity he has endured all his life.

Deep breaths.........blow it all out.........

This is Canada? This man lives 15 minutes from a capital city and he has no running water or amenities? This man has to pay RENT for that rancid hovel........WHO is the landlord who refuses to purchase lumber so this man can fix the rotting flooring? Who is the landlord who threatens to sell the place before he spends a nickel to turn it into a rentable cabin? I curse the landlord under my breath and wish him sleepless nights until he finds his conscience.

Deep breaths...... blow it all out......... reflect, resilience..... fighting spirits......... creativity unfettered.......

these are the lessons I learn today from a man who is afraid of his own temper, who has no place to shower, who lives in squalor.

I turn on the ignition to find Bruce Springsteen filling my safe air conditioned car with these words.............

We shall overcome......
We shall overcome......
We shall overcome, someday
Oh, darlin' deep in my heart
I do believe
That we shall overcome someday....

I let the Boss' words wash over me like a salve.
Fighting spirits....hope...resiliency
By the second verse, I'm singing in harmony......
well, trying my very best....
As I sing the lyrics, I start believing in them.
I head off to my next appointment.