Lifestyles Ideas Management - A Letter

Dear friend,
She came to our front door Tuesday morning, dressed in dirty rags, holding a little aluminum paint can in her arms.
From the second she stepped inside our shelter, she mystified us. Whatever she did, wherever she went, the paint can never left her hands.
When Kathy sat in the crisis shelter, the can sat in her arms. She took the can with her to the cafeteria that first morning she ate, and to bed with her that first night she slept.
When she stepped into the shower, the can was only a few feet away. When the tiny homeless girl dressed, the can rested alongside her feet.
“I’m sorry this is mine,” she told our counselors, whenever we asked about it. This can belongs to me.”
“Do you want to tell me what’s in it, Kathy?” I’d asked her. “Um, not today,” she said, “not today.”
When Kathy was sad or angry or hurt – which happened a lot – she took her paint can to a quiet dorm room on the 3rd floor. Many times on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday, I’d pass her room, and watch her rock gently back and forth, the can in her arms. Sometimes she’d talk to the paint can in low whispers.
I’ve been around troubled kids all my life…I’m used to seeing them carry stuffed animals (some of the roughest, toughest kids at Covenant House have a stuffed animal). Every kid has something – needs something – to hold.
But a paint can? I could feel alarm bells ringing in my head.
Early this morning, I decided to “accidentally” run into her again. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?” I said. “That would be great,” she said.
For a few minutes we sat in a corner of our cafeteria, talking quietly over the din of 150 ravenous homeless kids. Then I took a deep breath, and plunged into it…
“Kathy, that’s a really nice can. What’s in it?”
For a long time, Kathy didn’t answer. She rocked back and forth, her hair swaying across her shoulders. Then she looked over at me, tears in her eyes.
“It’s my mother,” she said.
“Oh,” I said, “what do you mean, it’s your mother?” I asked.
“It’s my mother’s ashes,” she said. “I went and got them from the funeral home. See, I even asked them to put a label right here on the side. It has her name on it.”
Kathy held the can up before my eyes. A little label on the side chronicled all that remained of her mother: date of birth, date of death, name. That was it. Then Kathy pulled the can close, hugged it.
“I never really knew my mother, Sister,” Kathy told me. “I mean, she threw me in the garbage two days after I was born.” (We checked Kathy’s story. Sure enough the year Kathy was born, the New York newspaper ran a story saying that police had found a little infant girl in a dumpster…and yes, it was two days after Kathy was born.)
“I ended up living in a lot of foster homes, mad at my mother,” Kathy said. “But then, I decided I was going to find her. I got lucky – someone knew where she was living. I went to her house.”
“She wasn’t there, Sister,” she said. “My mother was in the hospital. She had AIDS. She was dying.”
“I went to the hospital, and I got to meet her the day before she died. My mother told me she loved me, Sister,” Kathy said crying. “She told me she loved me.” (We double checked Kathy’s story…every word of it was true.)
I reached out and hugged Kathy and she cried in my arms for a long time. It was tough enough getting my arms around hers, because she just wouldn’t put the paint can down. But she didn’t seem to mind. I know I didn’t…
I saw Kathy again, a couple of hours ago, eating dinner in our cafeteria. She made a point to come up and say hi. I made a point to give her an extra hug…
I’ve felt like crying tonight. I can’t seem to stop feeling this way. I guess this story – the whole horrible, sad, unreal mess – has gotten to me tonight.
I guess that’s why I just had to write you this letter.”
Taken from Cries of the Heart, Ravi Zacharias (Word Publishing, 1998), pp. 165-66 Sister Mary Rose, president of Covenant House, NY, Covenant House Newsletter, Fall 1995.