Angels On My Side

Knowing that I had people on my side played a big role in my ability to maintain any semblance of sanity. But because I didn’t feel comfortable “coming out” as homeless to a lot of people, the few that I shared my truth with became very important to me.

The first person from work that I told was my immediate manager, Sam. The café also did catering, so oftentimes I’d find myself working late at private events. The first New Years Eve Ball that I worked for them, I was scheduled until 4am. Thinking one hour would be enough wiggle room, I requested a late curfew at the shelter, telling them I’d be back by 5am. As the night wore on, it became obvious that there was no way we’d be getting out by our scheduled time. I panicked because had I missed curfew, there was the very real chance that I’d be kicked out of The Program and wouldn’t have a guaranteed place to sleep. As 4am approached, I went to Sam to tell him my problem. I tried to be offhand about it, not wanting to dwell on the subject of my own homelessness. He was shocked, but characteristically supportive. He couldn’t promise me that I’d be out in time to make curfew, but he assured me that if I couldn’t get into the shelter, I could come stay with him and his wife. I was touched that he would make that kind of offer, but I was still determined to make it back to the shelter in time. Fortunately I did, but the biggest thing that came out of that revelation was the feeling that someone knew what I was going through. I’d been worried that word would quickly spread and people would treat me differently, but Sam never broke my confidence. After that, it became easier to tell people from work about my circumstances. I wasn’t as afraid anymore of their judgment. I began to realize that, even though my homelessness was a result of my own poor decisions, it wasn’t the mark of shame I’d been fearing. The coworkers that I told, rather than viewing it as a sign of my own weakness, saw it as something difficult that I’d overcome, and they seemed to think more highly of me than ever.

“Coming out” to my work friends made it easier to reach out for help from other people. One such person turned out to be already connected to me. At the shelter, there are different groups for different types of homeless men. I was in the Veterans’ Group, which emphasized programs and benefits available to those who have served our country. During the weekly job-search meeting (it didn’t matter that I already had a job, I still had to comply with the requirements of The Program, and attending job meetings is one of them), John passed around a printed email listing jobs available to veterans. In the address line, I spotted a name that looked really familiar immediately. “Jason Wayne Brooks” had been cc’d on the email, and something about his name struck a chord with me. It took some thinking, but I finally remembered where I’d seen the name before: one of my best friends from high school, a girl named Marella, was married to a guy by the same name. Turns out it was the same Jason Wayne Brooks, and he indeed worked for a non-profit organization dedicated to helping vets who were either homeless or in danger of becoming homeless. They offered many different services, from job placement to work clothes. That last part particularly interested me, as I was due to start my new job at The News of the World Cafe, and didn’t have clothes that complied with their uniform requirements. Knowing I was scheduled to work my first day the following morning, Jason squeezed in an appointment with me where he presented me with the clothes I’d need to start working. I’d emailed him my size and the kind of clothes I’d need, and he’d gone out early that morning and gotten me what I needed. Looking at the Wal-Mart bag on the floor beside his desk, I almost teared up thinking of how blessed I was to know someone in the right place at the right time.

I wound up working with his organization, Volunteers of America, more extensively as I prepared to move out of the shelter. After qualifying for their rental assistance programs they helped pay my rent every month for the first five months I lived on my own. The amount they contributed changed each month, with them paying less each month, and me paying more. It was designed to give vets an opportunity to save money, while still having a roof over their head. I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to properly express how grateful I am to Jason and the staff at VoA. Their advocacy on my behalf not only afforded me dignity and opportunity, but it gave me the strength to persevere when things got difficult. Because of my association with them, I had the confidence that my time in the shelter would be ending sooner rather than later.

White Flag nights, or The Difference Between the Homeless and Bums

From November through March, inclement weather is marked with the phrase “White Flag.” White Flag is declared on any night (during winter months) when the temperature drops below 32 degrees. When temps are that low, anyone seeking shelter will be allowed in, no matter what. If all the bunks are taken, the tv room is re-purposed as a sleeping area and the mats are brought in. Sometimes as many as 65 mats will cover almost every spare inch of floor, leaving only enough room to walk between the mats without stepping on a sleeping resident.

I always thought the concept of White Flag was a little arbitrary. If 32 degrees is cold enough to kill a man in his sleep, is 33 really any warmer? Doesn’t 34 feel just as cold as 32? But at the same time, I understood the need to set some limits. In a place like the South Wilmington Street Center, maintaining rules was the only way to prevent absolute chaos.

Aside from disrupting the tv schedule, White Flag nights served as great people-watching and inspiration for social commentary for me. I would walk past the open doors to the tv room, look inside at the sea of humanity and just think, “There but for the grace of God…” White Flag nights also illustrated something that people who’ve never been homeless may not realize: there are classifications to homelessness. There are the newly/temporarily homeless. They’re the ones newscasters are talking about when they utter scary statistics like “X percentage of all Americans are one missed paycheck away from homelessness!” I counted myself among that number. When the temporarily homeless talk about moving out of the shelter, they use the word “when,” not “if.”

Another classification of homelessness is the bum. Bums are the ones people are thinking of when they deride panhandlers. They’re the ones who “sleep rough” under overpasses and in campsites in the woods. The general consensus is that bums have basically given up on doing any better for themselves. They are “about that life” and can’t imagine anything better. In the shelter, the worst thing you could be called was a bum. It was a way of referring to another as subhuman, savage, dirty. Most of the guys who came into the shelter on White Flag nights were described as bums by the rest of us. They were the guys who’d been barred (sometimes permanently) from the shelter for previous bad behavior, or for an inability to comply with the rules of The Program. Luckily for them, White Flag nights trumped being banned from the shelter.

The other notable characteristic of White Flag nights was the smell. That many unwashed guys in one poorly ventilated room can produce a stench of ungodly proportions. Other than the sight of that much humanity crammed into one room, it was the smell that took my breath away more than once. Some nights, the tv room smelled like a combination of feet, beer-sweat, and “sadness.” It’s the smell of the bums that will always stick with me. I learned the hard way to hold my breath when walking behind certain people. Once when Kindred and I were sitting in the tv room eating dinner, a bum walked past us and sat down about a foot away from us, on Kindred’s side of the table. Suddenly, Kindred swore and stood up abruptly. Continuing to curse, he stormed over to the trash can and dumped his (almost full) tray in the trashcan. When I asked him what was wrong, he glared at the newcomer and said he’d lost his appetite. Before I could ask what he meant, the smell hit me. If I’d had to wager a guess, I’d have said that the time since the bum’s last shower could be measured in weeks, not days.

The smell notwithstanding, White Flag nights always served as a stark reminder that it could always be worse. I got a glimpse of how the homeless sometimes live, and I knew for a fact that it wasn’t for me.

Holiday Guilt

Around Thanksgiving, I began to notice an interesting phenomenon. I used to half-jokingly refer to it as “Holiday Guilt.” Among the excesses and commercialism of the holidays, some volunteer groups feel compelled to give more generously of their time and resources. Large groups of volunteers flooded the shelter, fixing elaborate meals. And rather than making us line up to get our own food, the holiday volunteers had us remain seated and brought our meals to us. Since I normally sat close to the kitchen door, and I hate waiting for food, that arrangement suited me just fine.

The week before Christmas, the volunteers starting showing up with gift bags for us. There were some variations, but for the most part they all contained the same things. Warm hats, gloves, toiletries, and socks were all included. Lots and lots of socks. We joked about being “sock rich,” having the luxury of changing socks once—hell, even twice a day. There were so many matching pairs of socks floating around the homeless community that it was like some sort of secret club. I’d see someone on the bus wearing cheap but warm grey socks and think, “I bet those came in a gift bag with a card attached that read ‘Jesus loves you!’…”

I always had a soft spot for the kids that came with the volunteers. Occasionally, one or two clearly showed that they wanted to be anywhere but there, but that was the exception rather than the rule. More common were the well-spoken, polite ones that reminded me of a younger version of myself. In an on-going attempt to teach me compassion, Joan and The Captain used to take me to volunteer at a nursing home in our town. I was, for the most part, a pretty compliant kid so I went along with the program. My parents, the rest of our church group, and I would spend a few hours on Saturdays with the nursing home residents. We’d pass out care packages of homemade cookies and sugar free candies, sing hymns, and doing arts and crafts. I used to look at the residents and wonder what it must be like to be that dependent on the generosity of strangers for companionship or basic human needs. I had no way of knowing that time and hard living would one day answer that question for me.

One of my favorite groups visited us Thanksgiving evening and spent a few hours with us. It was a group of Hispanic Seventh Day Adventists and they were one of the first groups I encountered that did anything more than feed us and leave. The food they did serve was amazing: roast turkey prepared pulled-pork style, spicy Spanish rice, and servings of some of the best caramel flan I’d ever tasted. Other churches and restaurants were having special meals for the homeless, so some guys just weren’t hungry. Others, being unfamiliar with Hispanic cooking, passed on the trays. I made out like a bandit that night. Two guys handed their trays over to me, and I was only too glad to devour multiple servings of delicious food. I also copped four servings of caramel flan from guys put off by the look. In a way, it turned out to be a more traditional Thanksgiving than I’d expected. I was thinking I’d be depressed since I wasn’t with my family, but it turns out several helpings of tryptophan will do wonders for one’s sense of contentment, regardless of the surroundings.

After serving us, some of the volunteers lined up against the wall of the tv room and sang for us. They strummed a guitar and sang contemporary Christian songs while I ate like a king. Their singing didn’t seem like an attempt at recruiting, just an honest expression of the love of God they wanted to share with us. After singing some, they broke off into smaller groups, having earnest conversations and getting to know some of the residents of the shelter. Again, it never felt like they were looking for us to drink the proverbial Kool-Aid, they just wanted us to know that God loved us, and in a way, they did too. They looked us in the eyes, smiling genuinely, and making casual conversation about everything from sports to guys’ plans to get out of the shelter.

The Siete Dia Adventists, as I began to call them, visited a few more times while I was staying at the shelter. Each visit, they were the same genuine, kind people they’d been on Thanksgiving night. I don’t know how many souls they saved in all those visits, but I do know they were regular reminders that not everyone looked down on the homeless.

Photos from the streets of Raleigh

In the shadows of giants, pt. 2

Everywhere I turn, there are people resting in the shadows of giants. In some parts of Raleigh, those giants are the looming crystal towers and condominiums. Not far away, the giants are those guardians of legislature in the Capital Building. Built in Greek Revival style, it sits surrounded by lawns dotted with memorial statues to the dead of several wars.

Also peppering the pristine lawns are a few homeless figures. The paradox is amazing to me: society's most powerless separated from its most powerful by an expanse of lawn.

A return to the land of the employed

For the first three weeks I was at the shelter, I didn’t have a job. The feeling that I would never again be gainfully employed consumed my thoughts. Every day it ate away at my natural optimism like a cancer. And then, in one week, it was like the dam broke and everything started to change at once. I had three interviews scheduled at the end of the week: two on a Thursday, and another on Saturday. The interview Saturday was at News of the World Café, a restaurant located inside the NC Museum of Natural Sciences downtown. After responding to a Craigslist ad with my cover letter and resume, I got a call back from one of the managers, Sam, asking to schedule an interview on Saturday at four.

The day of the interview, I dressed carefully in khaki pants, a pale pink long-sleeved button down shirt, and navy blue sweater vest. I looked like “prep” personified, but I hoped to also look highly employable. I found out later that Sam had scheduled the interview so late because Saturdays are the busiest in the museum, and therefore in the café. By the time I got there, the craziness had died down, but I could still sense the dissipating energy all restaurants have immediately following a rush of business.

Sam was an enthusiastic white man with bright blue eyes, brownish-red hair, and a friendly smile. He was a few years younger than me, and slight in frame.  I would soon find out, however, that what he lacked in physical stature, he more than made up for in sheer enthusiasm. He greeted me like an old friend with a knuckle-crushing handshake and the interview began.  We sat at one of the silver tables in the café and went over my work history, my strengths, and my personal goals. He seemed genuinely interested in hearing about my background, and we chatted easily for twenty minutes. Finally, he gathered the pages of my resume together with my application and promised to pass along my name to the general manager for a follow-up interview.

Walking out of the café into the fading sunlight of the evening, I couldn’t help but think I’d rather nailed the interview. I was left with a positive impression of the staff working there, and thought that Sam had been left with a similar impression of me. The only thing left to do was wait and hope that the general manager, Lily, would call me back soon for the follow-up interview.

Two days later, while walking back to the shelter with Kindred, I noticed a voicemail notification on my cell phone. I hadn’t heard the phone actually ring, but that wasn’t uncommon. It was a low-tech “Obama Phone” and I wasn’t yet used to its synthesizer-style ringtone or gentle vibration. I was used to my old smartphone that was loud enough to wake the dead and vibrated like it was trying to chew its way out of my back pocket.

Listening to the message, I came to a complete stop in the middle of the sidewalk. I stopped so suddenly, that Kindred didn’t notice right away and took three or four steps without me before glancing back quizzically.

“Hey buddy! This is Sam Howard from News of the World Café. I spoke to my manager, Lily about you and she’s excited about sitting down with you. I was hoping you could come by sometime tomorrow afternoon, just give me a call back when you get this so we can set something up. My cell number is 919….”

When I got through to Sam, we agreed that I’d come by the next afternoon for a sit-down with Lily. Oddly, I wasn’t as nervous for this interview as I’d been for the first one. I figured if all she had to go on was what Sam had told her, he must have told her some pretty nice things about me. Plenty of people in Raleigh had relevant experience, but she was making time to talk to me. Realizing that boosted my self-esteem, and by the next day I felt ready.

This time I wore khakis and a blue and white gingham long-sleeved button down. Once again I looked like I’d crawled out of a J. Crew catalogue, but after having seen the denim-clad, heavily tattooed barista working at the café, I felt like my fashion sense was the least of my concerns.  My interview with Lily, a perky 30-something with sunny blonde hair, was remarkably like my interview with Sam. We chatted like friends, and I tried to let my personality shine without rambling on. After only ten minutes she nodded silently to herself, as if meeting me had confirmed something she’d suspected from her conversations with Sam. She concluded the interview by saying, “Well, I have three more interviews to go, but I’d call you a strong candidate for the position. I like how you express yourself, and I like the idea of you interacting with guests on our behalf. You should be hearing from us by the end of the week.”

After feeling so down about myself for so long, I was scared to be optimistic but I couldn’t help myself. As I strutted past the giant globe outside the museum, I sang to myself, “They liiike me…they liiike me….they really really liiiiike me!” Two days later, I got the call from another manager, Jeff, inviting me to join the staff of News of the World Café as an attendant/cashier.

To say that I was happy about the job offer would be a massive understatement. It was like a weight had been lifted not only from my shoulders, but from my spirit as well. Not only did I have the opportunity to make money again, I had taken the first step toward getting out of the shelter. No longer was my departure an “if”; it was a “when.” I was on my way, and my heart was glad about it indeed. 

First night in the shelter

For about six months, I’d been living with my friend Charlene, but the property manager at her apartment complex found out I was there and threatened to evict her for breaking her lease if I didn’t leave within 24 hours. With nowhere else to go, I made my way to the men’s shelter on South Wilmington Street in downtown Raleigh. My first night there was kind of a blur. I was pretty relieved to have a roof over my head at all, but eventually the reality of my situation began to sink in and I found myself becoming overwhelmed.

Even though I’d only packed a fraction of my actual possessions, I still had a duffel bag full to overflowing with clothes, and three plastic supermarket grocery bags full of shit (for lack of a better term). Surveying my pile of belongings, the caseworker doing my intake paperwork murmured “I don’t think you’re going to have enough space for all that. I’d advise you to lock up the important or valuable things and keep a close eye on the rest—things can get stolen pretty easily around here.” I’d been lucky enough to get a bed, which meant I got a medium sized drawer under my bunk and a small wall locker. In my haste to vacate Charlene’s apartment, I’d never considered that I might have more items than the storage space allotted to me could accommodate.

The caseworker, a diminutive New York Jew named David, promised to keep an eye on my things while I walked the two miles to the closest store that sold locks. When I returned, I was afraid that someone would have sold them for crack but they were still there, meagre and pitiful looking, but untouched. I crammed what clothes and shoes I could into the lockable spaces and put my tablet and loose papers in my bookbag, which I vowed to keep within arm’s reach at all times. Somehow I knew that the tablet would be a connection to the life I’d known and was determined to never be without it.

I’d arrived at the shelter just in time for dinner. My first meal as a homeless man consisted of baked chicken coated in greasy ketchupy barbecue sauce, soggy boiled potatoes, limp green beans and a square of yellow cake that had clearly seen fresher days. The shock over my sudden change in circumstances had dimmed my appetite, but I knew I should eat all I could. The only thing worse than going to bed as a homeless man would be going to bed as a hungry homeless man.

After dinner the TV room was cleared so the Chore Team could come in and clean up after us. They swept, mopped and made room for the overflow guys who didn't have an actual bunk and would be sleeping on mats on the floor. On White Flag nights when the temperature dropped below 32, the entire cafeteria would be filled with mats, as many as 70 men sleeping on thin green mats. But when temps were "warm" enough, we'd be allowed back into the cafeteria to watch TV until lights-out at 11.

I've always had a hard time going straight to sleep when I lay down, so lights-out in the shelter meant laying in the dark listening to the other guys in the dorm snoring and farting. Hardly lullaby material. But that first night, I didn't heard them at all. My mind was reeling from the new reality I was facing: homelessness. I couldnt even bear to think the word, yet I could scarcely think of anything else. Eventually I drifted off, and (as these things tend to go) I felt better in the morning. Having survived my first night in the shelter, I awoke more determined than ever to find employment and get my life back on track.

Kindred Spirit

One of the first real friends I made in the shelter was Kindred. I spotted him sitting across the cafeteria from me one afternoon and I noticed that we seemed to be staring at each other. Later I found out that we both thought the other looked familiar but neither of us could figure out where we’d met. On my part, I always thought it was because he looked like a funny character from a popular sitcom, but he hated the resemblance so I tried not to bring it up too often.

He was ten years younger than me, with an old soul and cynicism that made him seem closer to my age. We were both Black, but with his pecan brown skin and soft curly hair, he had a look that suggested a diverse ancestry. In fact, his hair was the first thing I noticed about him—I was insanely jealous of his hair. It was afro length, and bunched in loose twists. I just knew that if I tried the same look I’d resemble a frayed, dirty cotton swab, but he pulled it off with style.

Normally a guy like Kindred (good-looking, smart, sarcastic as hell) would have been my “type” but a couple of things prevented that. For one thing he was straight. While he was comfortable with having gay friends, he was totally into women and made no bones about it. Also, I wasn’t trying to be part of a homeless shelter romance. I’m not sure what that would have looked like, but I wasn’t trying to go down that road. I’ve seen people (of all different orientations) engage in amour sans-abri (“homeless love”), but I wanted to fix my own life before affixing it to anyone else’s.  

We would hang out whenever we had free time, working on our respective writing projects. Jointly we came up with ideas for a graphic novel about a moon man and a perpetually stoned koala bear. In a way, the insane adventures of Milton The Moon Man and Kairo the Koala kept us sane. We’d share inside jokes about others in the shelter, exchanging knowing looks every time Calm Down Phil would bounce into the room. I think we both thought of ourselves as different from everyone else. Not necessarily better (at least not most of the time) just apart. We both readily admitted that we weren’t “about that life.” Kindred was one of the few people I could see myself socializing with once we’d left the shelter. In a lot of ways, he was my lifeline; he was my connection to the creative side of myself that I’d been afraid was dying in the shelter environment. 

Lunch at the soup kitchen

The first few days I spent in the shelter, I still had a few dollars on me. Since breakfast and dinner are provided daily by the shelter (with volunteers doing the serving), my only real expense was lunch every day. For a while, I had enough to indulge in McDonald’s value menu, but eventually my money ran out. For two days, I’d leave the shelter after breakfast, not knowing how I was going to feed myself until dinner that night. Those were two long, hungry days. One day on the bus I overheard two fellow residents talking about a church downtown that provided hot lunches for the down-and-out. I discreetly followed them off the bus and up the block towards the Church of the Good Shepherd.

I got in line as they queued up along the sidewalk, listening to the mingled voices of the crowd. There were a few familiar faces—guys from the shelter or people I’d previously seen around the downtown area. As the line grew longer, I battled with the feelings swirling inside me. “I don’t belong here” I kept thinking; “This place isn’t for people like me.” …”I’m not like these people.” The reality of my situation directly contradicted those ideas.  If I didn’t eat there, I didn’t have any reasonable way to feed myself for lunch. I did belong there; this place was for people just like me; I was just like everyone else in line: hungry, and struggling to make it.

The line snaked down the block, into a small fenced-in alley that led into the fellowship hall of the church. Eventually the line led into a hallway, then into the hall itself. It was a smallish room, with about 15 round tables positioned tightly around the room. Each table was ringed with seven folding metal chairs. As we entered the room we were greeted by a volunteer at the door handing out wet naps. My first thought was that the wet naps wouldn’t make a dent in the filth some of the diners bore. But I guess that was a more practical nod to hygiene than expecting all those people to troop off to an unseen bathroom and wash up. It was evident that many of them were accustomed to eating with dirty hands anyway, so maybe the wet naps were more of a token gesture than anything else.

After being welcomed, we inched along the edge of the room until we reached the serving line. A smiling volunteer welcomed us again and handed each diner a tray and a single plastic fork wrapped in a napkin. The serving line was staffed by more smiling volunteers, each scooping a portion of their designated food onto a Styrofoam tray. The volunteers rarely asked if the diner wanted the food, they simply ladled it onto the tray and passed it along to the next volunteer. That makes sense, since there were signs by the door saying the staff wasn’t in a position to accommodate dietary requests. Religious, cultural, and medical diets weren’t observed. I guess the thinking was that there were too many people coming through the line to make each tray especially for each person, and if they were hungry enough they’d eat what was given to them. It didn’t matter to me—I was grateful to have something to eat and someplace to sit down and eat it.

The menu varied depending on the day and the group doing the cooking and serving. Sometimes it was chicken, other times hamburger patties, sometimes more than one meat. Sometimes the food would change over the course of the hour-long lunch, as they ran out of items and had to substitute with something else. Again, I was completely unbothered. I was more concerned with keeping the walls of my stomach from clapping with hunger.

One thing that surprised me was how good the food was. I don’t really know what I was expecting. I guess the phrase “soup kitchen” left me with images of Oliver Twist begging for another bowl of congealed slop. In reality, the food was damned tasty. Savory casseroles, hearty portions of beef, steaming pans of green beans—it was amazing to me. Though they couldn’t be concerned with dietary requests, they clearly took great pride in cooking delicious, filling food for us, and I was grateful.

After collecting our trays, we would pick a seat somewhere in the room and sit down to eat. Often, the pace of people coming into the hall exceeded the pace of the people getting up to leave. For the first thirty minutes or so, there would be adequate seating for everyone. After that, more and more people would be forced to wander around holding their trays, looking for an empty seat. It was a bit like the holding pattern of a busy airport, with planes circling the runway looking for a place to land.

The tables were decorated with vases of (relatively) fresh flowers, salt and pepper shakers, and napkin holders. The napkin holders were the kind that have plastic covers on the sides, meant to be used for advertising. Instead of ads for, say, Earl’s Auto Body Shop, there were hand-drawn signs on each of the holders. They varied from table to table, but each was a life-affirming message reminding us that we were loved. One of my favorites read, “You are precious in His sight.”

After eating our fill (I’m ashamed to say I could rarely finish all the food given to me), we dumped our trash and empty plates into a trashcan and handed the dirty trays through a window to a volunteer who loaded them into the dishwasher. Then we’d walk out of the fellowship hall, back out the hallway, through the alley and back into the sunlight of the street. There’s a certain comforting feeling when you’ve eaten your fill and have one less thing to worry about. I’d often find myself smiling and quietly thanking God for the good people at The Church of the Good Shepherd. As filling as the food was, it was the smiles and kind words that felt more nurturing. There was never a turned-up nose—even the teenagers that sometimes manned the drink table or circulated the room offering cookies looked like they wanted to be there. I don’t think I’ll ever be grateful to be homeless, but I’ll always be grateful for places and people like that—ready to make me feel welcome and remind me that there’s always room in God’s heart for all His children.

This is what "homeless" looks like

According to statistics from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), there are as many as 49,000 homeless veterans on the streets of America. As of November 8, 2015, that number included me.

To be honest, there’s no one reason that I’m now living in a men’s shelter. Bad decisions, brushes with the law, alcohol, and just plain bad luck have all contributed to my current circumstances. But more important than how I got here is how I’m going to turn things around. Faith in God, faith in myself, and a little help from my friends will all be crucial as I plan my ascent from homelessness. 

By sharing my story, I hope to accomplish two things. I want people to look past the “typical” story of the homeless and see the humanity that lies beneath it. Just as important, I want to be an example. I still have a long way to go, but I want to prove to others (and myself) that it’s never too late for redemption.