The Walking Dead

My neighborhood houses a facility for people with mental illness, who shuffle up and down Main Street and annoy some of the parents because they smoke in a park near the swings and slides that the kids could use. No kids ever go there because everyone avoids the smokers.

One of my neighbors calls them "the walking dead." Recently I was given an assignment for a class that I'm taking, to go somewhere out of my comfort zone, see the people through the eyes of compassion and write a reflection. The next few paragraphs are a shortened version of that reflection.

When I arrived at the park, I sat on the bench trying to put myself in a state of prayerful silence. Immediately, one of  residents whom I usually find most annoying plopped down next to me.

“Are you new here?” she shouted.

I tried not to cough on the smoke that kept drifting in my direction. I tried not to notice the huge sore on her upper lip.

Instead I asked her name and she told me that it was Laurie. I remarked that cigarettes these days must be really expensive. She agreed and informed me that because cigarettes were now $8 a pack, most of the residents smoked cigars, which were only $1.50 a pack. Her voice became less obnoxious as time went on. When silence returned I prayed that her cough would get better.

Everybody in the park was either smoking, lighting up, or bumming a cigarette from another person.
The spring chatter of the birds was punctuated by coughs from those human chimneys. I also noticed that when each person got up to walk back across the street to the nursing home, he or she would say “Good –bye” and politely explain why he was leaving. Albany Care is a community of people who need to be connected, just like me.

Soon “De BOR ah,” as she likes to be called, sat down next to me, with a great big beautiful smile on her face. “Maary!” she shouted. ‘Thanks for coming to visit me.” I know Deborah from church; she is a robust African American woman with bleached blond hair, who covers her face with gold sparkly foundation. She loves to pray, dramatically, with her hands and head held high, most often standing, occasionally after the rest of us have sat down. She always has a huge smile for me, when she asks me for a dollar. If I offer it before she asks, sometimes she turns it down.

When she’s not smiling, she’s actually looking down in a forlorn manner. Today she told me about her boyfriend who would help her find her own apartment. She also told me that she felt that it wasn’t fair that her mother treated her poorly. I listened and exchanged small talk with her and when she wasn’t talking to me. I prayed silently that her pain around her mother would be healed and that she would be protected from anyone who might try to take advantage of her.

She asked for money. I gave it to her and then we walked together to the corner store, where she used it to pay off a pair of shoes that she had put on a kind of informal layaway. She kept telling me that she wanted to pay me back. She wanted to give me something. I told her that all she needed to do was remember that she is loved and if she wants to she can pray for me.

Immediately, right there on the park bench, Deborah folded her hands like a child before bed and fervently prayed a beautiful and lengthy prayer for me.  Crazy as it may have seemed, that moment felt holy, right there on that park bench. It felt just as holy as Easter Sunday in my community at St. Nicholas Church.

There were many more moments of connection in that two hours. Before I left we hugged.

I understand that I should be careful about hugging people whose illness can cause them to be unpredictable. I understand that I can’t always expect a lucid conversation from each person from that facility. But most of all, I understand that God’s love shines on them as much as it shines on me and you. I really do them too!