Free A Gift of Hope: Helping the Homeless by Danielle Steel Page A

little ponytails and knots all over her head. And from each tiny tail and knot she had hung a silver Christmas ball. She was a bit like a human Christmas tree, or one of those holiday cards showing a reindeer with Christmas balls hanging from its antlers. It sounds crazy, but I loved it. Holidays are seldom acknowledged on the street. And my heart ached each time I said, “Happy Thanksgiving” or “Merry Christmas.” Just saying it seemed like an affront to people so intent on the business of living and survival.
Happy? Merry?
Ugh. How insulting is that, in the circumstances they’re in? Sometimes I just couldn’t bring myself to say it. But the woman with a head full of silver Christmas balls had clearly decided to pay homage to the season.
    As we handed her the things we were giving her, she looked me in the eye with a serious sense of purpose. She didn’t smile as she glanced at me intently. “My name is Brenda,” she said clearly. “Please don’t forget me.” “I won’t,” I promised, wondering how many people had forgotten her, wherever she came from. “I promise,” I said out loud. And I never have. Each time I drive by there, I think of Brenda with her proud walk and noble stance, with the silver ornaments in her hair. I will never forget Brenda. How could I?
    Similarly, we found many of our clients outside the bus station, lined up in the shelter of an overhang, safer than most because of bright lights that allowed no one to sneak up on them. It was a place where we did a lot of business. It rapidly became one of our regular stops. And one night, in the midst of the controlled chaos of handing bags with contents in three sizes out of three vans, a man walked up to me quietly, looked at me intently, and said, “My name is Jerry. Will you pray for me?” I thought he meant right then, and I would have if he wanted. We had never done that before, but no one had ever asked. “Now?” I asked quietly, honored that he should ask. “No.” He shook his head, his eyes never leaving mine, “Later … after you go … pray for Jerry.” I have now for years. His name is carved into my mind. The promise was real.
    A woman who tore my heart out crossed our path in our first year. She was young and blond and pretty, maybe in her early twenties. It was the first time I learned what a crib was. In her case, it was a well-constructed shelter made of boxes carefully fit together, propped between two pillars of an overpass. She emerged from her boxes, shivering in the cold, and I correctly guessed her to be six months pregnant. I was deeply concerned for her and we talked about her pregnancy. She said she was getting prenatal care from time to time, though not on a regular basis. And what we had to give her seemed so inadequate, living on the streets in her condition. She said shewas living alone, then added that this was her third baby. She said that when she gave birth, the social services took the babies, and then she returned to the streets. She said it with tears in her eyes, but a plucky tilt to her chin. I didn’t dare ask her where her family was, if they would help her, or how all this had happened. But she kept my stomach churning after I left her that night. How could she go through all that and then give up her baby? But what would happen to an infant on the streets, living as she did? It made me think of women in war zones, whom you see on TV, or in ravaged countries. And here this was, happening in our backyard, in an allegedly civilized city. Later I learned of one government agency and a group of private volunteers who provide prenatal care to the homeless, and I have referred many women to them. But I did not know of them then.
    We saw her regularly over the next months, as she got closer to having the baby. It was spring by then. She never complained, she was just grateful for what we gave her. She would take what we offered and disappear into her little cardboard box. She had no one with her,