Another Guy In A Wheelchair

I have a different story today involving another person in a motorized wheelchair.

I'm actually still at the Pasadena Public Library as I post this. I came here to do some studying in air conditioned comfort (despite it being late September, it's still 90 degrees out here in LA).

There was a gentleman whizzing around the library lobby in a motorized wheelchair. I didn't pay him much attention until he engaged in conversation a woman standing near my table. It seems that the woman was homeless and had started attending a local church where this gentleman is an active member. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I began to listen more intently as this guy who introduced himself as Willie told this woman that if she was a member of their church, the church would take care of her, though it would be a process and the results would not be immediate. The first thing to be done was to get her connected to a female member of the church (because it would be inappropriate for a male) who could take her dirty clothes and get them laundered once a week. And as it was nearly lunchtime, he told her where she could get lunch today if she wanted to, but didn't have to. And he kept repeating that she wasn't alone in this anymore.

I was struck by how he extended dignity and hope with his words, and I found myself being very aware of how ungracious my typically snarky words can be when I'm at the park. In typical Asian fashion, I've rationalized this by pointing that my being there should be enough given how no one else would return given how I almost got killed doing this. More on this later.

I approached him and told him how struck I was by how he extended hope and dignity with his actions and speech and how inadequate I felt having witnessed that even though I make dinner for the homeless on a weekly basis. We talked about a number of things I'm not going to go into depth about, but our conversation turned to our passions for what we both do and so it came out that I continue to pursue this passion despite how I nearly died doing it.

While I was touched by his speech, apparently he was equally touched by my story and the result was that he now wants to enter into a partnership of sorts where we begin to meet regularly just to talk, and how I might become the first link in a chain that helps homeless people reintegrate into society. I am of course blown away by all of this. What gives me pause is his response that my story should be publicized more than it has been. If anything, most people DON'T want to hear the story as it typically makes them uncomfortable though I'm not sure what it is exactly. Part of it is obvious to me - some people just don't want to face the idea that their lives aren't...'safe' for want of a better way to put it. I think others are put off by how I keep telling the story almost as a comedy monologue - as I keep saying, once you get past the initial premise, most of the story IS pretty funny - EVERYBODY laughs at my assigned name Gustavo Perez.

The idea that my story could somehow be inspirational has never really occurred to me (though I've often speculated with substantial snark how I'd be a CNN poster boy if I'd been of any other faith; "THIS JUST IN: MUSLIM/ATHEIST/WICCAN HEROICALLY CONTINUES TO FEED HOMELESS DESPITE NEARLY  GETTING THROAT SLASHED BY CRAZED BOX CUTTER BRANDISHING WOMAN  CLAIMING TO HEAR VOICES FROM GOD"). The  reality is that if my mom finds out I that I nearly died she'll have a major spazz attack. The 'official' story I told her initially over the phone was that I was hit in the neck by accident during a church function - which it more or less true as far as it goes. I waited five months to tell her when I finally saw her in person when I went back to Ohio to visit - and only that I'd been stabbed in the neck and not that the anterior branch of my carotid had been severed. The entire time I was in the hospital, I greeted every person entering the room - doctor, nurse, visitor, whatever with the same question: "How do I tell my mom what happened to me?" I guess the point is the thought has been that publicizing the details would result primarily in more stress than anything else.

I guess the bottom line is that I'm going to have to live with the idea that should I choose to bring attention to what happened to me, some people will view it as self-aggrandizing when the hope is to be motivational.