Update: the woman writing on the street

Prayer - but for what?

I went to take my laundry to the laundromat this morning before work - my apartment does not have a washing machine on site - and I saw the woman I wrote about yesterday in a new spot. She was over near my old apartment building, on a residential street rather than the main street. She was sound asleep. I did not bother her.

It makes me so sad that I started to cry. There has to be a better way. What could be much worse than the living death she is barely surviving now?

Certainly being tortured in a psych hospital would be worse. But a humane care setting where she could get water and food and medicine and a bed to sleep in would be so much better. She’s not together enough to navigate a homeless shelter. She needs serious medical care.

I found myself wishing that the angels would come down and pick her up and take her to heaven. Somewhere beyond the pain of her existence.

I’ve had some rough times myself, and “There but for the grace of God go I” is real to me. I’m so glad I never even tried illegal drugs, but I do not take any kind of moral credit for that. They were just never in my path and I’m terrified of breaking the law. Well, at times they were in my path, but I always said, “No, thank you,” and often had a drink instead.

Alcohol is a deadly poison, but at least when you get it you know the supply is safe. It’s the unsafe supply that killed my friend’s partner. The downstream effects of drugs being illegal cause more damage than the drugs themselves. I’ll never stop being a harm reduction advocate.

I just wish there was something I could do. A water bottle here and there, when she is awake. And pray.