Safe Haven

You never know how a day will turn. Yesterday morning I woke up early to meet with a few guys over breakfast and then spent some time studying at Brew downtown. When I got home around 11 am, I was startled to find something out of the ordinary in our carport.

Backstory: My mother has a cousin whose been living on the streets for the last 15-20 years. A product of a ridiculously broken home and addiction after addiction. A father who brow beat him to death, and a brother in trouble so much with the law he was forced to flee the country, and ultimately died of a drug OD in a bathroom in Spain. That's right. Read that last sentence again.

I live in a bedroom efficiency on the side of my 80 year old grandmother's house in Wilton Manors. My grandfather built this house 60 years ago for $1200. They never moved. Once in a while, she'll get a call from the police or a hospital asking her if she's a relative to my mom's cousin. 15-20 years of addiction, floating, and life on the streets has made it impossible for us to really do anything. He's too far gone for my grandmother's or my ability to help, unless he actually stayed around and checked into a shelter. But he won't. He'll move on, and we won't hear from him for years, perhaps not until one day the call will come that he's dead.

After my grandmother and I spent some time talking with him yestrerday in our drive, I spent the rest of the day thinking about it. My grandfather who passed away last year took these 2 boys in. He cared for them, loved them. Circumstances that were so bad in their lives that would ultimately kill one of them, and banish another to the streets. But through it all, they loved my grandparents. From another country, the one brother would call, just to check in, never saying where he was, but he called.

When my grandmother recieved the call from the hospital a month ago saying her nephew was there, she actually talked to
him. The first time in years. She had to tell him the closest thing to a father he had died last year, and that his brother was dead. So, a month later he stopped by to talk. And we did. And then he left again.

Through it all, those 3 boys in all, saw my grandparents, this house, as the last safe haven. The last refuge. No matter what, there was Uncle Chester and Aunt Bea. The contact info left with the police is this house. This family.

I thought a lot about being a man of peace and kindness. That if one day my house, my life, was seen as a safe haven for family and friends in need. My grandfather was. This house was. I don't know what we can do, but there's family out there, and I pray for the day that God might do something ridiculous and redemptive for him.

But I thought all day about a man who climbed the beach at Normandy. A man who worked contruction for 40 years. A man who came back from war and built a house of peace, a safe haven.

I thought of Papa.