>

Hungry

Read on

September 24, 2007

Day 20: Do you like my wedding ring?

This past weekend S. and I were out on a walk. On our way home we have to pass two Chinese restaurants, and outside one of them was an old man. Let me be clear about one thing. We smelled him before we saw him. He was hunched and frail looking, his layer upon layer of clothes all hung off as if he were nothing more than a human hanger. His face was black and dirty but his eyes were piercing. They were hungry. With a beer tucked under one arm he stood at the doorway of the Chinese restaurant looking in. As people walked past him, he made eye contact but he didn’t beg for spare change. The smell of fried wontons and Mongolian beef was so strong in the air that my stomach rumbled. I could only imagine what the odors were doing to this gentleman who hadn’t eaten in days.

I asked my husband for change. He didn’t have any, neither did I. We were both in workout clothes that didn’t even have pockets. The only item we carried between the two of us were the house keys.

I felt my eyes welling up with tears. He looked so hungry. S. trying to make me feel better said, “He would’ve just spent your money on more alcohol anyways.” I didn’t care. S. then pointed out, “You’d just be fueling the habit that put him on the streets to begin with.”

At first I thought he was right. Maybe I would’ve just been wasting my money in trying to help the old man. But after arriving home I came to a conclusion…

Who are we to judge???

If I were living out on the streets, in the cold, with no walls to protect me from the wind, I too might opt for a strong drink to warm me up and make me forget for a while, rather than a bite to eat that would only leave me feeling hungry again in just a few short hours. If I give him money does that mean he’s obligated to do with it what I want him to? Of course not. People always judge the homeless or the needy for what they spend their money on. When I was younger, at Christmas time, my brother and I used to choose wish lists from families that were bad off and had registered with the Santa Claus Girls to be “adopted” by someone who would buy some of the presents they had asked for. One year I showed the list I had chosen to a friend. She asked me with outrage, “Why would a poor kid ask for Nike tennis shoes? He should be asking for food and clothes that he actually needs!”

Maybe that little boy wanted shoes that would make him feel like the rest of his classmates. Maybe he looked up to Michael Jordan and wanted to be like his idol. Maybe having new shoes would give him a new dignity.

You really can not possibly know the motivations behind people’s desires unless you have walked a mile in their shoes. The saying is cliché, but it always rings true.

8 Comments

Facebook comments:

8 Comments »

  1. I really struggle with the same thing. I rationalize it that *I* have to to my part. I can’t control how they react or what they do with the money, but that doesn’t take away from my duty to be generous.

    Comment by Amanda — September 25, 2007 @ 4:16 am

  2. I so know how you feel! I go back and forth on the issue all the time! When I see someone on the streets, sometimes I have given them change and sometimes I have given them some food. I figured that I will give them something to help (even though I wish sometimes I could do more) and what they do with it is up to them.

    Comment by Tiffany — September 25, 2007 @ 6:46 am

  3. I totally agree with you. If you chose to judge them then where do you draw the line? Do you then not give them money unless you know its for healthy food? Should they be buying a coke or some juice that will give them more vitamins? And why worry about something you don´t even know the answer too? How the hell do I know what they are going to do with their money. You give them money because they are in need, a show of faith in humanity and to give that person with minimal resources the freedom to make their own decisions about what they do with that money.

    Comment by Kristy — September 25, 2007 @ 7:03 am

  4. I have a really hard time with the judgment issue because in my city every street corner has someone begging for money. The ironic thing is that they are usually dressed better than most people and have an expensive bike leaning up against a pole behind them. They also all know each other and trade corners and shifts—I am not joking. I feel much more for the one who is silently plodding along not asking for a thing and just literally minding his own business. I would much rather help someone who doesn’t ask me for it. Plus there are plenty of jobs for the taking in my city and more programs for the homeless than you can count.
    I also have the contrast in Mexico where I would see people who had terrible problems and they would be selling something…usually just a trifle but still it meant the difference of shame and dignity.
    In the end, no matter how I say it, it still can’t hide the fact that I am, indeed, too judgmental.

    Comment by Rachel — September 25, 2007 @ 10:58 am

  5. Your words ring very true to me. I once criticized my father for giving money to a woman who I felt was a con artist. But I realized that it was wrong. What she does with the money is her own business and if she’s a cheat it’s on her own conscience. Of course if the person is very obviously a con and its a racket, that’s different. But I judged not knowing. I judged because she made me feel uncomfortable.

    Since then I’ve tried to look at people differently and if I have money to spare I’ll give it away. I’d rather give the benefit of doubt and be taken advantage of than refuse someone truly in need.

    Comment by ordinarygirl — September 25, 2007 @ 12:28 pm

  6. English is not my mother tongue but I will try my best:
    Your post is very interesting and I have to say that I agree with you “Who are we to judge? But I have got an other question Who are we to feel sorry for someone? I mean that could be a way of looking down on that person. And what is worse, we might be doing that to feel that we are better. I am not saying that it is easy, but if we try to see each other as equals the world will look different.

    Comment by bad — September 27, 2007 @ 7:58 pm

  7. Okay, I am not gonna get into the judgment argument. I think things have been aptly said, and you make eloquent your points. That said, I am gonna argue with what S. said. Alcohol is not always the main contributing factor to people ending up on the streets; however, it is often a main comfort factor once stuck there. People end up on the streets for multitudes of reasons: bad luck, no education, low mental capacity, emotional or physical trauma, etc. Surely sometimes alcohol is the contributing factor; but categorically viewing it as such has a secondary effect– it allows you to wash your hands of the people, it puts them in category of other, lesser than, undeserving. Do you know in old england the poor laws choose between the deserving and undeserving poor. These are the laws that most western societies are based on and in some ways continue with today. But who says who is deserving or undeserving and how far back in a life do you look? Is a woman who is on the street because she is a drug addict undeserving? Is she more deserving if she started using drugs because she was the victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather?

    Comment by clare — September 28, 2007 @ 11:16 am

  8. I agree with you Clare and I want to tell you about something I have been thinking at. It may sound a little controversial but it is possible that some of those who we think are in a unfavorable situation may have decided to go trough it of some reason we don’t understand. It could be a religious, political or philosophic matter. I don’t mean all of them and I don’t mean we don’t need to care, but maybe in some cases it have to do with something else than just bad luck. Am I completely wrong?

    Comment by bad — September 28, 2007 @ 1:43 pm

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment