You tell me its a walk in the park?
We often get told stories by our followers. Some are uplifting, some are amusing, some make us spittingly angry, and some, well some just make us sad.
We have a friend, lets call her Jenny, who has a little boy called Jake. They live in a flat in a block, it has shared access by a walkway, and an outside bin area. Jenny's little boy is a bundle of energy, and he loves running around. So every day that she can Jenny and Jake take a walk to the Park, where they feed the ducks bread crust, and afterwards Jake rules the world from the Pirate ship in the playground.
Jenny takes up the story…
One of those late summer days, Jake had been racing round the flat, waiting for our walk. He saves his crusts every morning for "Ducky", and she gets one crust off our little loaf every day. Jake has a little box he puts them in, and off we go.
This day we sat on the bench by the pond, and a rather scruffy lady came and sat next to us. I felt a bit uncomfortable, you know? Jake has no such fears "Hello Lady"… and soon they are in a conversation about ducky.
I've seen her around town to be honest. A bit of a bag lady, the older kids call her 'Mad Jerry'. I'm thinking we might move away and go to find the other kids at the playground, and I turned to gather up Jake.
He had his crust box open and was very politely offering his crusts to his new friend. Who thanked him. And began to eat them.
"No breakfast" said Jake decisively. Nodding and smiling at Mad Jerry.
Normally I'd have freaked … but…
She looked at me. "Thank you, your little boy is the first person I've talked to in months. They all run away, or throw stuff at me, or chant at me, he has a good heart. And I have left some for his ducky friend." And she smiled, gathered her bags, and walked away.
"Nice Lady, Geraldine" Jake said the name carefully. Then started to call up his Ducky for her slightly smaller breakfast.
And it could have ended there, but of course it didn't. Jake is at the age when everything is "Why?" "Why didn't the lady have breakfast? Why does the lady live in that old building? Why does she carry all them bags?"…. And "Can she have my breakfast sometimes?"
And I have to ask the same questions...
We met Geraldine lots of times after that. She was a very private lady, and didn't really talk much to me. But she taught Jake cats cradle, and some funny rhymes about a blackbird, and he liked being grown up and talking with her. We used to take a picnic, and, after some difficult starts, shared it with Geraldine when she was there.
Summer turned to autumn, cold foggy mornings, trees in the park full of spiders webs and dew. And we saw less of Geraldine. I wanted to help her, but she wouldn't let me. "You haven't got enough for you and Jake, I can cope deary"
And we accepted that. And one week she didn't turn up.
We did look for her. We asked around, asked the Policeman we see by the corner shop, even asked the kids who used to torment her. But nothing. Jake kept taking his 'Ducky box', with a chocolate bar for Geraldine. But we never saw her again.
Kids are pretty tough, and Jake is a year older now. We still feed the ducks. And in the spring Ducky introduced us to her new offspring.
Jake calles it Geraldine duck…
Thank you Jenny.
Geraldine "Mad Jerry" was discovered dead in a derelict garage at the back of the estate. It wasn't her usual hiding place, but nobody was really looking for her anyway.
She was 44.
According to Crisis the average age of a person dying if they are homeless is 47. For women it is around 43. It shouldn't be so.
Homeless isn't worthless
Homeless isn't invisible
Homeless isn't a choice
Here at Beanies_Masato we support the Homeless.
We also support our outreach partners, by giving information about what they do, and where they can be found. We also sell things through our webpage that donate beanie hats, scarves and duffle bags via Partner organisations. These go directly from You to the Homeless.
http://www.masato.co.uk/collections/masato-homeless-support
The names have been changed, and some details edited at the request of Jenny.
Blog written by Sue
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