The Poorest of the Poor
by Judy Jones
from
'Catholic Voices in a World on Fire'
Anthology
A copy of the book is in the
Blessed Mother Teresa Center; Rome, Italy
Washington, D.C. was having one of its worst blizzards. Determined to get to Mother Teresa's house for homeless men and women dying from AIDS, I asked the bus driver to let me know when we got to my stop. "What street is that?" he asked. "I have driven a bus in D.C. for twenty years and have never heard of it." Someone on the back of the bus yelled out, "I know where it is. I'll let you know when we get to your street."
Thank goodness, I thought. Living in California had not prepared me for snow and freezing temperatures. The day before, I had tried to get to Mother Teresa's orphanage for newborn babies located in the Chevy Chase section of Washington D.C. When I asked people on the street for directions, one said defiantly, "We don't have orphanages in our neighborhood." Unfortunately they do and I did find it along with five of the most beautiful newborn babies you have ever seen. Mother believed in small things with great love, not numbers.
Climbing in almost waist-deep snow, the white house at the top of the hill was huge. Perhaps a senator or congressman had once owned it before Mother Teresa made it a home for the dying destitute of Washington D.C. Knocking on the door I was apprehensive. Having only volunteered with homeless men suffering from AIDS in the past, I wasn't prepared for what I was about to see.
"Hello, come in, please," said the Sister at the door. "Will you be able to come every morning this week and help us get the elderly women out of bed and into baths?" "Elderly women?" I asked, thinking the home was only for homeless people with AIDS. "Yes, we have six homeless elderly women and they can't get out of bed by themselves."
As Sister took me downstairs to the basement where the women's beds were, I heard screaming. Walking up to the woman screaming, I said, "Whats wrong, may I help you?" She appeared to be in her nineties, all shriveled and tiny. "Please, please help me up." As I started to lift her she looked into my eyes and in an almost angelic voice said, "I'm as heavy as a sack of bricks!" Laughing I assured her she wasn't quite that heavy.
"We found her in the snow, she was dying." said the Sister. "In the snow?" "Yes, people call and let us know about certain ones dying outside, alone."
"Please help me," a voice etched with pain said behind me. A young woman in her early twenties was sitting on the side of her bed. She was dying of AIDS and was homeless. "Would you please put some cream on my legs, they hurt so badly." Reaching for the cream on the dresser beside her bed, I gently rubbed some on her legs. "Oh thank you, God bless you," she said. Her name was Rose.
"Hello, and welcome." Two bright and cheerful volunteers from France smiled and offered me their hand. "We go around the world volunteering for the poorest of the poor. There is nothing better on this earth to us than to offer a helping hand." I couldn't agree more, I thought.
At that moment a huge crash came from their kitchen. A woman named Jewel was throwing her food and dishes on the floor! She wanted something and no one had heard her calling - this was her way of making certain we came. If I had no one to even help me to the bathroom, I wondered what I would do. Having a family makes it all too easy to forget those who don't.
As I looked at the other young women in their beds, all certain to be dead within the next few months, I could feel Mother Teresa's presence. Her love and simplicity were everywhere. Mother never fought back in worldly ways, lawsuits, etc. for help for the poor. Her weapon was prayer. And her prayers were answered in remarkable ways.
Walking down the hill to the bus, with snow blowing in my face, hot tears ran down my freezing cheeks. I felt powerless to do anything but totally rely on God at that moment. Otherwise, I couldn't come back to this house in the morning. The suffering was too great inside those doors. Mother Teresa's deep love for the poorest of the poor is the only reason I went through them today.
"Can you paint?" asked the thin sister who opened the door the next morning. "Oh yeah," I said. "Would you be so kind as to paint some roses on the counter in the kitchen in the women's shelter?" God had seen my tears falling in the snow on the way home yesterday, I thought, and knew the way to my heart was to put paints and a brush in my hand! I had been given a special grace.
The two French volunteers were standing by the bedside of Shelly, weeping and praying. Shelly wasn't expected to make it through the night and these two strangers loved her more at that moment than even her own family could have. They were part of her heavenly family, of this I am certain.
********************************************************************************
When I arrived the following morning, walking down the stairs I felt a strange joy in the air. Rose was laid out in white with lit candles all around her bedside. At twenty-three years of age, Rose, a woman in our nations capitol had died of AIDS, homeless. I glanced at her legs, the legs I had rubbed the cream on when I first got there. The Sisters' faces were filled with joy knowing Rose was home now, home with God and no longer in horrid pain. Rose not only had the pain of a disease which inflicts suffering not even imaginable, but more importantly the pain of being homeless, with no one.
A man and woman came into the room and looking at Rose's body said, "We are her relatives." The man turned to Sister Emmanuel asking, "Did she have any money left from her welfare check?" I couldn't believe that could be their only concern.. Their sister had just died and they wanted what little money she might have had. And then I knew.
I was seeing stark poverty before my eyes. It rips through all known socially acceptable politeness. The poor don't have time for that. They have one thing on their mind, survival. Money affords us time. Time to mourn behind closed doors, time to heal and the ability to 'present a happy face' in society. The poor only have time to think about the next meal, finding a warm place to sleep and how to make it to the morning light without being mugged or worse.
For a moment I had forgotten Rose was homeless. And her brother and sister standing over her body loved her deeply in the way they could and I knew Rose would have wanted them to have any money she had. She had fought a hideous illness that ripped her life from her at the age of 23. Yes, she would have given them everything she had. The torch they carried was now for three.
**********************************************************************************
"Judy, Judy! It's Jacob." Turning around ,I said, "Jacob, what are you doing here?" We had both volunteered together at Mother Teresa's Gift of Love House in San Francisco, which is also for the homeless with AIDS. Jacob had moved to Washington D.C. when he heard the Sisters needed help lifting the men, giving them baths, etc.
"I was really angry with the Catholic Church," Jacob told me once. "I had been very faithful to them for years but felt they weren't helping others as they should be. One day I saw a group of tiny nuns in the park outside of city hall feeding the homeless. I found out they were Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity Sisters and I've been volunteering with them ever since. That was ten years ago. And you know something? I don't have time to be angry at the Church anymore. Mother Teresa's unselfish giving to the poor opened my heart; offering me a way to be of service in my retirement years."
Jacob died recently of cancer. How many diseased bodies he fed, held and bathed, and how many tears he dried in the early morning hours, as he sat patiently by one bed after another, will never be known. Nor will how many huge pots of soup Jacob lifted with the Sisters into trucks to take to the starving in the parks. If there is any work to be done in heaven, I know Jacob is there offering his strong arms and huge heart.
"Hello," said a very young woman in a wheelchair as I walked in the women's bedroom the next morning. "I'm Regina," she said, offering her hand to me. Regina was in her twenties and was also found dying in the snow by the Sisters. She has the mind of an eleven year old, has cerebral palsy, and AIDS. "I'm going into the hospital in the morning to be operated on," said Regina. "They are going to remove some of my toes that were frostbitten when I was in the snow." "I'll come visit you if you like," I told her. I took her huge grin for a 'yes'.
Regina was in bed in the charity ward of the hospital being prepared for surgery when I walked into her room Her face glowed. "Oh, I'm so happy you came," she said. "Would you go get me some cigarettes?"
"This is John," said Regina when I came back, handing her the cigarettes. A well built young man sat by her bedside, also in a hospital gown. "I was shot by a gang member," John said to me. Regina teased him saying, "Oh, John, sure. Come on, you know you were out pulling a hold-up and some guard shot you." John adamantly shook his head. She threw back her head laughing.
"Regina, I brought some clay. Could I do a small bust of you while we talk?" I asked. "Sure," she said. I sculpted and listened while Regina explained how she ended up in the snow where the Sisters had found her. "I was very sick and went to the emergency room at the hospital. The nurses gave me some pills and sent me on my way. They didn't know I couldn't read and that I had no home and had been staying in a shelter in downtown D.C. that lets you sleep on the floor, since they don't have enough beds."
"So I was walking to the bus stop and felt really bad and sleepy. I sat down in the snow under a tree and when I woke up the Sisters were smiling at me and asked if they could help me to their house." "We have a bed for you," they said. "And that's how I got to Mother Teresa's house, high on the hill." Giggling she added, "Would you go get me a Coke and candy bar, please?" I did and heard the doctors telling her as I walked back in her room, "We can either remove two or three toes. One might get better in time. It is up to you." "Oh, take them all now. I can't walk very good anyway because of my cerebral palsy." But instead of pitying herself, Regina beamed from an inner light, her radiance more pronounced as her outer situation grew more dim.
********************************************************************************
When I arrived at Mother Teresa's the next afternoon, there was Regina in her wheelchair with her feet bandaged, at the dining table with the elderly women surrounding her. Regina, a young woman, half their age, in even worse condition then their own. Her sweetness and joy took their minds off themselves and their own intense suffering. God works in mysterious ways.
If I could offer a gift to everyone on earth, it would be to spend a day in any of Mother Teresa's houses for the homeless dying of AIDS. If heaven can actually be felt upon the face of the earth, it is in these rooms of Mother's, where the poorest of the poor, thrown out of society, have the great grace of dying in the arms of angels.
by Judy Joy Jones
Painting of Mother Teresa by Judy Jones
'The Bones of the Homeless' by Judy 'Joy' Jones
http://www.bonesofthehomelessbyjudyjones.com
