I met Willie downtown today on the corner of Wacker and LaSalle, near the Chicago river. He's a humble, quiet man of wisdom from the West side. He told me, prayer sustains him. "Without prayer, I'd be in a trash can." "God is real, and so is the devil, but God is stronger."
Willie looks for work wherever he can find it. Over the years he's worked as a butcher, a mechanic, and an orderly at a nursing home. When I asked him what his favorite job was, he said it was working at the nursing home. "It's hard caring for people because you get attached to them and you miss them when they die." As I listened, the irony of what he said was not lost on me. Being an orderly, is obviously the least desirable of the three jobs he mentioned, yet he enjoyed it because he built a sense of intimacy and relationship with those he was caring for - - as well as made himself vulnerable to grief and loss when they died. I didn't expect this kind of wisdom from a homeless man on a street corner, but Willie was "being real with me".
Willie didn't get around to telling me how he became homeless, though he said his downfall was drugs and chasing women. Despite his past and present circumstances, I got a sense that Willie is in a better place today.
Join me in supporting folks like Willie as I work to raise $5,000 for men and women who are homeless while training for the October 2011 Chicago Marathon. Tax deductible donations can be made at http://www.active.com/donate/crossroadsrunners/edduffy
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