“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...
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