Dear Editor:
There is a homeless man who spends most of his time on Washington Street in Hoboken. Whenever I talk to him, he’s hungry, and when I can I’ll buy him a bagel or a roll and maybe a piece of fruit and some coffee. One night I saw him trying to get comfortable enough to sleep on the bare pavement in front of a closed store on a chilly night, so I went home and got him a blanket and a pillow. He’s been wearing the same clothes for weeks (at least), so I’ve been trying to find clothes big enough to fit him. He’s always gracious, and always says thank you.
This is not meant to be a letter devoted to congratulating myself for doing a few small things for a homeless man; they are the very least I feel I can do. It’s about thinking in realistic terms about what it really feels like to be without a home, and – on top of that – to be scorned by those who are more fortunate.
In the past few months I’ve been fasting once a week. I started doing it for a number of reasons, but once I started I realized that it had a benefit I hadn’t really considered – I have a small inkling of what it’s like to be really hungry, and a better appreciation of the fact that I can choose to fast, or not, that I can limit it to one day a week, and that on the following day I can wake up in my comfortable bed and think about what I’d like to eat for breakfast. I even have a private bathroom to use, and clean clothes to change into after my shower.
Sometimes, while I’m fasting, I’ll walk down Washington Street in the late morning when people are eating brunch at outdoor tables at the local restaurants, or in the evening when people are having dinner and drinks. It’s not easy; I swear that I’ve been tempted once or twice to reach over to someone’s plate to grab a piece of sushi or a big burrito. And I also think about how I’d be looked at by some people if I were to try to sit down at one of those tables looking as involuntarily disheveled and dirty as my homeless friend does.
It’s an exercise I recommend; many of us sympathize with the homeless and the perpetually hungry, but empathy is more valuable than sympathy in convincing us to take the extra step to help someone be, at the very least, a little more comfortable, and to feel that someone actually understands and cares. Many of us don’t know, or have forgotten, what it feels like to be forced to go without the things we take for granted.
Nancy Bevilaqua
Hoboken