What is it to be poor? What does it look like? What does it feel, or look like to TRULY be hungry. Is it the quiet gentle soul minding his own business as he pushes his shopping cart stuffed with his worldly belongings past you on the street? Is it the person holding a sign on the corner asking for help, swallowing every ounce of pride to stand out there in total humiliation as the world drives by and rolls up their windows while passing judgment on what “that homeless guy would do should I give him money”? Is it the face of a hungry child who lives in a car in some abandoned lot looking through their bedroom window of an old beat up car? Or is poverty the masses I look out at every weekend through my bedroom window as they line up at the soup kitchen a mere 60 yards from my condo? I’d bet that my friend Jeremy knows what poverty is as he works at the homeless shelter a scant 30 yards from the soup kitchen. Poverty and pain; richness and joy, how often do we see these words used in combination with one another? Is it fair to say that most of us have associated one with the other? Have you ever done anything to help change that pain to even the briefest moment of joy for someone else? Do you find yourself switching lanes when you come up to a red light where one of those “pan handlers” is standing, frantically rolling up your window and resolutely promising not to “look over there”? Have you ever been poor? Have you ever been in need? Do you know what it feels like to wonder if you will have a place to live tomorrow, or if you’ll be able to make the truck payment next month? What about that electric bill and those groceries? The attorney(s) who call and want the money that you owe still for their heroic battle to keep your kids in your life for HALF of what it was before…have you ever felt that pain? Have you ever sat at a business lunch with a VERY important associate and not heard one word they said because all you can do is feel guilty for eating such an amazing lunch when you don’t even know what you’ll feed your kids that night? Staring at your plate and just losing all apatite and knowing the right thing to do was go get a “to go” box and bring what is left home.
The litanies of questions I ask in the preceding paragraph are ones that I have always tried to be aware of from my pre-teen years until now. I spent some time in those years “running”. Running from reality, the law, my parents, and any sense of authority. I’ve slept in abandoned cars and in a park a few times as my parents frantically looked for me. I knew then (or so I thought) what it meant to be cold and hungry…alone. I am thankful for the experiences from that time in my life as they have never left my memory and those nights trying to find a place to sleep have fueled the fire that I have inside to NEVER GIVE UP. I am far from perfect, far from being the most altruistic person I know, yet I am the first to dart across lanes of traffic, or slow down and jockey over to time the red light just right in order to reach down into my cup holder and hand that stranger who shares that common thread of “pain”…a handful of hope from my ash tray. Whether it be fifty cents or a couple of dollars, I do it to this day. I am no saint, nor am I anything but a human with a little compassion, but I write this blog at a time in my life where (as a wonderful person recently told me) “my past makes sense”. You see, on paper and to the majority of this tiny little mountain resort town, I seem to be doing pretty good. Steady job. Great pay, nice truck, beautiful kids, survived a horrid divorce…..stop right there. We’ll come back to that “survived” part. So my past makes sense because I have always been that guy who’d stop and sit with a homeless person and just talk to them. Never condescending or contrite, just as if you or I were sitting there talking. I know now that my past prepared me for my future. I feel as though I have always had a heart for those who have less than “us”. Maybe it was God preparing me for the war I’d face over the last year. Maybe He was building my armor and strengthening my defenses…who knows. I do know this – poverty to most people is the rationalization that one is “poor” because he/she “has not”. I think that is a pretty fair assessment as I believe if you pass through the differing classes among us that poverty line shifts. My kids and I say our prayers almost every single night when they are here. On our knees, by the bed, and to this very day my kids (both of them) always ask God to “be with those who are homeless and hungry or have less than us”. It brings tears to my eyes EVERYTIME I hear that. I’m drifting here so let’s get back to why I asked these questions in my very public blog…I ask you to sit and think about what it means to be poor, what it means to be hungry, and what it means to feel the pain of a society who will not help. I ask you these things because they are things that I hold near and dear to my heart. It is something that I literally see when I look out my bedroom window in this little resort town that most people envision (and rightfully so to an extent) as a place closer to heaven and more beautiful than most of us have the opportunity to live. I ask you these things because for the first time in my life I know. I know what it feels like. I live it every day, and it is by far one of the most humbling experiences of my life as well as one of the most humiliating things I have ever had to admit. To most it could come as a shock..but it is what it is.
So back to where I “survived” a divorce. I hear that so often and it always makes me angry. Of course I survived..it’s what I do..it’s how I roll. But assuring the survival of the bonds I have with my children is a battle that NO ONE is prepared for. To have your humanity and dignity stripped away over this process is something that I wish not upon my worst enemy. Stop and grasp that for a minute – humanity and dignity. A very basic human need amongst us all right? What about those standing on the street holding the sign? Those sleeping under a bridge on a cold winter night? They too have it stripped on a daily basis and I know how it feels. I made it through the divorce, and more importantly I can say to hell with the divorce…I made it through the loss of not only my humanity and dignity..but even more potent, I survived the loss of my soul mate. Now that I am two days post the one year mark, I find myself thinking daily of how my life has improved. That’s what I said – improved. I have found, once again, what I had lost slowly over the years. I have learned to appreciate every dollar that I have and to find a way to make it stretch. I have an indescribable gratitude for every breath that passes through these lungs. I have learned that the simple things are the greatest things. I have watched a darkened sky become filled with friends who have reached out and helped me find my way. My sky is brighter everyday as these stars continually come into my life. So I didn’t “survive” a divorce, I merely survive daily and grow daily; for now the reality is there of being a single father, provider, and example to two of the bravest kids I have ever met. I will never forget the feeling of signing the final divorce papers knowing that one walked “free” while the other took on insurmountable (so they think) debt. Shovel on a helping of having to still pay “the other half” when you took the bills and walked away instead of fight, as well as the fact that you still pay that one due to their lack of ambition, attorney’s fees to no end…okay I’ll stop there but you get the picture. I didn’t survive, I’m surviving, and I will continue to do so.
The months have ticked by and I become happier every day. I become more appreciative to all that I have and as bizarre as it sounds I become more appreciative of all that I “don’t have” as well. My life has become simpler than it has ever been. You see, I am not just saying I am “poor”, I am. That was me sitting across from a business associate. It was me who could barely stomach the simple act of eating when I knew not how I’d feed my kids and pay all of the bills. My past may have gotten me this far, but I assure you that nothing prepared me for this, or did it? To TRULY wonder how I would survive from day to day. Without a car I could not take my kids to school each day, and therefore someone might pounce on that opportunity to try and take them from me (again). If I have no home of my own, ditto. No electricity? Ditto. No phone? Ditto. No job…you get it. So while I may still have a roof over my head (due to the kindness of a man who’s heart is bigger than all of these problems combined –thanks Ed), I wonder daily what is around the corner. I have been working nonstop for 6 months straight, to the point of total delirium in fact, because it would be easy to just give up..but would you? Or would you look out that bedroom window and find the will to keep fighting?
I look out that window on weekends and I see the shelter and the soup kitchen. I see the faces and the little hands holding big hands as they walk in. I always look at their hands, the kids I mean, and it just always seems like they are held by bigger hands. You can see in the body language, that even without food, a home, etc; the instinct of that parent is to never give up. Even if it means walking into a soup kitchen, and into the judgmental eyes of many. I’ve stood at my window and cried knowing that I am so close to those two places, not just geographically, but financially. I thank God every day for my job, another chance, another opportunity to fight this beast, because that could very well be me standing in that line. I went for a run on the river trail the other day and soaked up the sun and just let it all go for a bit. As I continued on I couldn’t help but let the numbers run through my head..I have this much..I have to pay this..wait I have to pay that..truck, rent, child support, electric, again and again the numbers dance through my head. And then it happened. I was running back towards my house and there is a park nearby and in that park, in the greenest spring grass, amongst all the Durangoans chasing the spring sunshine, a Frisbee, or hacky sack, there lay a homeless man. One I have seen many times. I had come to my stopping place where I stretch out then walk home to cool off, but this time I stretched a bit longer. In my self pity as I ran, I had forgotten all of the lessons that I described above, but here in the grass was a man for whom mom’s were very politely whisking their kids away from. A man who humbled my heart because I was worrying about how I’d buy groceries and there lay a man who probably hadn’t eaten in days. All along…he was making angels in the grass, and laughing. That’s right, snow angels..in the grass..on a spring day..with no snow. I BS you not. Just to get it out there, no he isn’t crazy and I feel that is a fair assessment as I have talked to the man.
Suddenly I just felt like all of my worries, while pertinent, just didn’t matter right then. I just sat on the picnic table fiddling with my shoes and watching. I love to watch..to people watch, and this was a real gem. I watched a little toddler slip away from his mommy and run right over to him and plop down in the grass next to him and make his own little innocent angels. The man just laughed. Even better was to see mini angel’s mom come over and not whisk him away. Instead she sat in the grass and yup..plopped down on her back and made an angel. I’ll never forget it as long as I live. For a moment an angel came along and took it all from my mind. I had to be to work so I just hurried along and smiled the whole way home. In the heart of a homeless man I saw peace and an angel. I survive with moments like these in my heart. Maybe I am out there looking for them. Maybe they find me, but I know that I am where I am today because of the love of friends who wouldn’t let me quit. I am here today because of the love of my mom and dad, my brother and his wife, a friend who came back from long ago, and a multitude of friends who picked me up again and again.
So it is that I came to this writing about being poor. About having “less than”. I feel pity for those who pity those of us with less cluttered lives. Sure I have bills and worries still, but something fantastic happens to you when you get to a place like this. You survive, and even more so, you “know” what it is to have survived. You get through it and along the way you gain SO MUCH MORE than the material things you lost. You gain love, appreciation, humility, humbleness, and a sense that life, when taken to the bare essentials, is just that – LIFE, glorious and uncluttered. My past makes sense now and it has led me to where I am today. I look in the mirror and I can say that for the first time in 17 or so years, I like where I am and I LOVE who I am. I feel in my soul that my relationship with my kids has flourished and the opportunity for us three to grow from this is astounding. I don’t know what I’ll feed them next week when they are here, but I KNOW that I’ll not let them down and I will figure it out. I know that the brightest of stars have been placed in my sky so that I may see when things get dark. I know that nothing lasts forever, but a little kindness and humility..a little joy can last longer than all else. I wonder every single day if it will be “the” day that someone will try and take my kids again, so I spend every moment with them in total gratitude. With all of these lessons in my heart I realize that we may have to eat Ramen Noodles, but as far as life goes…we are feasting on Steak and Lobster…. I may “have not” what most people would call riches, but I assure you that because of people like my friends, my family, and a very special friend who recently came into my life, I have hope…and that makes me the richest poor man you will ever know. Within poverty one can truly find joy.
*As a “post script” I want to thank every single reader, friend, family member, church member, training partner, climbing partner, stranger, and most of all the angel in the park for giving me hope and showing me what humanity is made of. I had someone proof this posting and immediately asked what they could do to help me…YOU CAN REMEMBER – that is “what you can do”. The next time you see someone down and out, reach out your hand. Take chances on strangers..hop in your truck and drive a thousand miles to meet one, or see family just because it is those relationships that make you rich. Do that for the Meyer family and you carry on the memory of what we have learned. Take a meal to someone who is hungry, what about those old blankets in your closet? Clothes that don’t fit? That is “what you can do to help us”. If nothing else, stop tonight with you family and be thankful for what you DO have. And don’t worry about us..I never give up!
With everlasting love and hope ~ The Meyer Family
