The Day of the Dove

“How are you?” I asked Kamy as I passed her in the Gallery Hallway at the Livermore Public Library.

“I am doing good!” Kamy said...

This is Kamy... yes, I AM OMELETTE Kamy!

“And I am very hopeful for the future,” she went on to say. She was smiling a broad, genuine smile. The kind of smile that someone wears who is genuinely happy in that moment.

I hugged her... not like me to get this excited, but I couldn't help it.

The thought ran through my head “who are you and what have you done with Kamy?” Not that I said it, but there it was...

“What is happening in your life?” I asked her. “What's changed?”

“I found a dove,” Kamy told me.

Kamy told me about a dove she'd found next to her car (which she still has) with a broken wing. Her first instinct was to take it to a vet, but she, of course, could not afford to do any such thing. She went on to describe all the things she had since learned about doves. She learned how to nurse it back to health. She learned how to feed it. She learned that they mate for life. And now, she complains, the dove is flying all over her room pooping all over the place... it's a terrible mess, but Kamy loves the dove, which she genuinely believes is a gift from God.

I was having a conversation today, about an hour before I ran into Kamy, with a new friend who is studying to be a doctor. He'll be taking his boards very soon, and I probably won't see very much of him after that. We ran through all kinds of topics regarding life, love and purpose, and one of the things we seemed to agree on is that when a man has a sense of purpose, he can accomplish great things. Where do most men get their sense of purpose from? I'm sure fathers get it from their children, I wouldn't know, not having had any.

But we agreed that men get a sense of purpose from a woman. Interesting, is it not, that men who are married tend to be wealthier than men who are not? You could read all kinds of things into that, I'm sure... but I like to think that a woman motivates a man... I've known more than one homeless man who's former lover's or wife's rejection was instrumental in his life crashing into oblivion. My late friend Richard Fincus comes to mind. He was estranged from his ex wife and separated from his adult daughters. When he spoke of them to me, he glowed. Talking about them made him happy, but it was a fleeting high for him. After doing so he would go into a melancholy state only alleviated with drink and false cheer. I think Smokey Robinson was thinking of Richard when he wrote “Tears of a Clown.”

I do not recommend a homeless man seek female companionship to give him purpose. That's a fool's errand and doomed to failure. The kind of women available to a homeless man are... well, you ever look for a needle in a haystack? Not bloody likely to find one, and when you do... no, let's not go there...

One of the things I'd truly like to talk about with my new friend, the future doctor, is this: where would a man find purpose without the benefit of female companionship? What is that special formula that will give the man that purpose to be successful... or dig himself out of a hole such as homelessness?

I'm talking about men for this reason: most homeless people I know are men. And most... maybe all of the homeless men I know seem to have a lack of purpose. Of course this may be only my own perception, I've been wrong before, and I will be wrong again.

But, purpose, real purpose, could be part of the solution for a good number of the homeless out there.

I have no answers as to how to prescribe purpose to anyone. I have enough trouble finding my own purpose, much less anyone else's.

But, just so all of you know, I could not be more proud of Kamy. She's truly turning her life around, and finding purpose welling up inside... it was an absolute joy to speak with her this evening. It made my week... all because of a dove...