Bobby lived in Uturn for about 5 months. A very, very smiley young guy, he would often grin and nervously chuckle when he talked about hopes, frustrations, anxieties and troubling past experiences. It always felt dissonant, like strumming a G chord when two strings are hopelessly out of tune. He disclosed a variety of things to me, things he really hadn't let anyone else hear before. We all want stories to share, but not these stories. Bobby feels he has a dark cloud hanging over him, one that continually rains misfortune, missed opportunities and snake eyes. He has a very deep, almost wired in sense that he is undeserving of anything good in his life which makes that dark cloud inundate his body and soul.
One day Bobby disappeared. We knew that he had multiple offerings to go live with family up north and the assumption was that he finally jumped the bus and made the trek. And now, almost a year later, he was back.
Bobby had walked that morning from his cousins place. He had been walking around since 7:45 that morning looking for an apartment. It was about 10:00 and it was one of the many, many freezing cold January days that we've become familiar with. Bobby was shivering and had trouble enunciating words with his frozen face. As we chatted the details of the latest trip gone bad came out...
Bobby has family in Manitoba and Brandon and for weeks they strongly encouraged him to come and visit for Christmas and move back to Brandon. Since his job wasn't providing enough hours up north he thought a change might do him good. He moved in with his brother and girlfriend and after only a couple days of searching landed a job. Plus at New Year's his girlfriend surprised him by coming to visit and stay in Brandon as well. They were going to try to do this all together and since there was a pregnancy involved, Bobby felt an even more urgent need to be stable and providing. Things were feeling like they were moving in a good direction.
Then one morning while Bobby was making coffee in his brother's house he was told that he should leave. Bobby's brother's girlfriend didn't like the fact that Bobby had his girlfriend stay overnight so she figured that he should move out. 6:00am on a frigid January morning seemed like a perfect time to her.
Bobby quickly packed his clothes in two garbage bags and threw them in a snow bank. He and his girlfriend walked to her dad's place where she was staying and for a couple of nights he stayed there. But with a full house and no money, this inn wasn't taking kindly to another person on the floor looking for food that wasn't there so Bobby was asked to find somewhere else to stay. After a night walking around Brandon, ducking into ATM bank doors here and there to keep from freezing he found a cousin to stay with. That was definitely a temporary solution and now he wasn't sure what to do. Incidentally his family stopped answering his messages after their insisting that he come "back down south".
We jumped in my truck and went and grabbed his clothes from the from yard of his brother's place. Knocks on the front door went unanswered so Bobby couldn't grab the big bag of dirty laundry and his personal hygiene items left inside. We hit a local restaurant with a great breakfast before buying some shampoo, deodorant and a toothbrush. We started driving around Brandon, knocking on doors of family of Bobby's seeing if he could crash there for a couple of days but luck didn't cooperate. He was worried about his job because he had only been there for a week and he had called in to let them know he wasn't going to be in that day. He hadn't showered in 5 days and just didn't feel comfortable being with people plus the stress of not knowing where he was going to sleep was making it hard to concentrate on work.
There are so many more details to Bobby that I won't and can't share here. In the end we managed to secure an Emergency Shelter for him (essentially a hotel sized room to call "home" for 21 days or less). I found out later that for a variety of reasons, Bobby decided not to stay and I haven't seen him since. I hope he's warm and has had some food in his belly and managed to keep his job.
Later that day I was sitting with my wife in my warm and comfortable house chatting about the day's events. We talked about how no one we know has ever, ever experienced what Bobby was experiencing (outside of my Uturn peeps). Bobby could like point to a dozen friends, cousins, uncles that knew his current routine all too well. We were sobered with our affluence, with our broad security net of people in our lives. Yes, some of that we worked hard to accomplish but more than we likely wanted to admit we were simply born into it. The number of strong, capable people willing to sacrifice and advocate for Bobby all through his life was sparse.
I've re-written the ending to this about half a dozen times, finding there is no good ending. How fitting is that? When we resonate with people we can end up absorbing some of their emotional experiences. I think that's happened with me and Bobby. What's next, how's this going to work out, what if he can't find a good place, what if he loses his job? What if, what if, what if?
And yet, we hold out hope that the dark cloud will break just enough that one small piece will fall into place and that will bring a different perspective on the puzzle that brings additional hope. "Oh look, look, look! I get it now!"
Gotta hope folks. Gotta hope.
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