Ben
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On Saturday morning, 1st of May, I received a phone call from Ben to ask if his friend had come in to pay for his groceries as he hadn’t had the money a few weeks’ ago. It had amounted to 6 euros and 10 cents and he wanted to be reassured that it had been paid in full. I put his mind at rest. His friend had called the previous day to settle up.
Then he enquired about our latest grandchild and said he had intended to buy a card to welcome the new baby. He would do it the next time he was passing on his way to an AA meeting which is accommodated in the grounds of our local church.
Next, he asked ‘Do you know where I am this morning?’ Many ideas rushed through my head as to where this honest, homeless man might have spent the night. Down by the riverbank, in a shop doorway, in an abandoned car, in a covered park bandstand, or perhaps even in a shelter for the homeless?
‘I am in Ranelagh Park, listening to the birds singing. I wish I knew more about the birds, their names, how to identify them. It is beautiful here’, he told me. I suggested that for this morning he could sit and receive their birdsong. He could come to know the birds through their singing first, and then he could start putting names on them. He said he would do just that, wished me a ‘God Bless’, and that he would wave in to me on his way to the AA meeting at 11am.
Ben is bent almost in half, unsteady on his feet, and is frequently bleeding and drooling through and over skin that hasn’t been washed for a long time. When I don’t see him for a few months, I wonder has he passed on, and then unexpectedly I will glimpse his misshapen figure weaving unsteadily through the traffic and I smile with happiness while other motorists are stopped in their tracks to allow him safe passage. Another day has woken up to receive a man who doesn’t whinge about the weather, the effects of the recession/credit crunch, global warming or cooling, or the price of the tahini, water and rye crackers which he buys for his picnic. His days are perfect, and so are yours, and so are mine.
