Coffee with Mike (Part 5)

About four years after Adrian’s death, when Adriana was in the 5th grade, Adriana and a friend were walking home from school. They passed a guy in a car. He called to them wanting them to come over. They took a few steps towards him and saw him masturbating. They totally freaked out! When they got home they were crying and so upset. We finally got them calmed down so they could tell us what happened. When I heard what happened I was beyond rage! I got my gun, took my daughter’s friend home, and I literally went out to hunt this guy down and kill him. I didn’t call the police or involve the authorities…I didn’t trust them. They never found the killers of my baby girl, so I never trusted that they would get the job done. I didn’t want them involved in anything in my life. I had no use for them. I would take care of my own business. So Adriana and I drove around awhile and found the guy near another school. I pulled up behind him, got out of my car, and walked up to him. I knew it was him because he was masturbating again. I grabbed him by the hair and shoved the gun in his mouth. When I put the gun in his mouth I felt some teeth break, and saw blood running down his face. I wanted to be the last person he saw before he died. I pulled back the hammer. Everything felt like it was going in slow motion. Then I heard Adriana cry out, “Daddy, Daddy, don’t! Please don’t! Please don’t do it!” Then I came to. It was like I was dreaming or in a trance. I looked at the guy for what seemed like for a long time and walked away. If it wouldn’t have been for Adrian telling me not to do it he would have been dead. I thought about it later and wondered how my little girl had so much power over me at that moment.

Another incident I feel I should tell is, a bunch of us went to a party at a buddy’s house where there were around 150 people at. Drinking and drugs were going on all day and night. By about four in the morning almost everyone was gone. We were looking for the guy who threw the party and we finally found him in the guest house on the floor. He was a heroin addict and had overdosed. He was still alive, but we did nothing. One of the girls that was there put his head in her lap and we all waited for him to die. And after he died we just left him there. We didn’t call 911 because the police would have shown up, and there would have been an investigation and we didn’t want to deal with that, so we just let him die. At the moment we were all so high that it seemed to make sense just to let him die and not involve the police, but later I felt bad about just leaving him like that. We were cowards. Three days later the police found him dead.

Coffee with Mike (Part 4)

In the fall of 1987, Adrian and Adriana went to their first day of school. They loved it. When they came home they told us “everything” they learned that day, how much they liked their teacher and the other kids. The year went well. Then the next year they started first grade...the real stuff. My little girls left first grade with above average grades. Little did we know that year would be the last holiday season myself, my wife, and both my precious little girls would ever spend together again.

The summer between first and second grade was awesome. We went to see the giant Redwoods, Yellowstone Park, and Disneyland. The girls were so excited to go to second grade that their mom took them on a special girl’s day out. They went shopping, to lunch, and just had a fun day. They were total girly girls. They loved shopping, buying clothes, trying them on, and modeling them around the house. That day though, when they got home I built a small runway and they modeled all their little outfits for me…spinning & dancing. It was a lot of fun for us all.

The first day of school came and went. Then in early October every parent’s nightmare unleashed. Sunday, October 7th, 1989 was supposed to be day of barbequing and fun at the park. Debby, the girls, Debby’s sisters, and a few friends…probably 12 of us total…were there to spend the day together having fun. The girls were playing in the park. About 3 pm, it started cooling down and when I looked up see where the girls were I couldn’t see Adrian. At first I didn’t think a whole lot of it…just kept looking to try and figure out where she went. But after a while of her not showing up I began to panic…she went missing. After about 30 minutes of searching with the help of people in the park we called the police. We were crazy, frantic…it is hard to explain how it felt. It is definitely one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced though. The police showed up immediately scouring the neighborhood knocking on doors, a helicopter was in the air blowing the bull horn for hours. We even had people come in from other counties to help, but there was no description of anything to help guide us. Nobody saw anything…nobody knew what to look for….nobody saw anybody grab her. It was terrible because we had no leads to go off of. Adrian was gone and no one had seen what happened. But everyone kept searching. The first day passed. The second day passed. The police said it didn’t look good. On the third day at 1:15 pm we got a call…“They think they found her. Would we come to the morgue?” I was sick…”God please don’t let that be Adrian! Please let her be alive still!” When I got to the morgue I had to go in to identify her. Debby didn’t go in. I didn’t want her to see our daughter like that if it was her. When I went I saw her beautiful face...it was her….my precious baby girl. She was gone... I was supposed to protect her and I failed. The search and rescue teams found her in the San Bernardino Mountains in a suit case, nude, cleaned, and her tiny body in pieces…dismembered. No evidence left. From the look of the suitcase it looked like she was probably thrown from a moving car 18 to 24 hours earlier. There was no respect shown…they just threw her out the window of the car…just got rid of her like she was trash! Anger and revenge brewed in me. If I ever found those guys I was killing them! Even if the police found them I was killing them! They would pay for what they did to my daughter and family! Somehow, someway I was going to find those guys. But the men were never found. My mind wouldn’t stop thinking about all the horrors she must have gone through during her final hours. Where was I? Where was her daddy when she needed him the most? I was sure thoughts like that were going through her head right before she died. From this point my life shifted. I would never be the same…how could I? My daughter was brutally taken from me! And I wanted vengeance…I dreamed about what I would do to those men if I ever found them! I was so caught up in myself and how I felt about Adrian that I couldn’t be there for Debby and Adriana the way they needed me to. I should have been strong for them. None of us went to counseling or anything. We did what we could to try and get “normal” again as a family, but how do you find “normal” after something like that? Adriana and I became even closer. She had lost her best friend, and I wasn’t about to lose her! I wouldn’t let her out of my sight for one second! I would take her to school and pick her up. I wouldn’t let her do a lot of things that other parents let their children do. She was only 7 and didn’t know how to express herself. She didn’t know how to explain the things she was feeling inside. She became very quiet and afraid, unless she was with me. She wouldn’t even open up the front door of the house. I needed to protect her and make sure she was safe. She continued to do well in school with around a B average, but she stayed very quiet and reserved. Sadly as we got closer she and Debby started slowly growing apart, just like Debby and I also slowly grew apart. I think in the beginning Debby and I were blaming each other, though we never said it out loud, but it was obvious that was happening….though I blamed myself more than anybody else. I was her father and I should have been there to protect her and save her! I did feel some animosity toward Debby…why wasn’t she watching her too? If we were doing our job this wouldn’t have happened. There are a lot of stupid and crazy thoughts that come into your mind after something like this, and it is hard to see clearly what is logical and what isn’t. I started spending more time with my friends, and got heavily into drinking. I couldn’t get enough. I always needed more. I couldn’t drink enough to dull the pain I felt inside.

Coffee with Mike (Part 3)

My daughters were good girls, very special. Debby and I took such joy in them! Watching them learn to walk and talk and potty train. We enjoyed every minute with them. They liked to wake up early in the morning, before Debby and I. They would get all their baby dolls and stuffed animals out and put them in a circle, sit in the middle, and watch Care Bears and My Little Pony’s on TV. They were only two years old at the time. They wouldn’t come in in the mornings and wake us up and bother us. They would just wait until we got up. And vacations were always special with them. We got to see the Giant Red Woods, and went to places like Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios, the beach…everywhere.

When the girls were about three, every couple weeks on a Saturday morning, Debby and I would fill up their bedroom with balloons and just watch them have fun all day long. It took us about half a day to blow up all the balloons by mouth, but it was fun for us all. They would go in and pop em’, play in em’, and jump in ‘em. Those were good times!

I was eventually laid off from Goldworthy and we decided to move to San Bernardino, CA where Debby’s two sisters and kids lived. There wasn’t much manufacturing going on there at the time, but we still had some savings left so I started working on bikes again doing welding. I would weld the frames and my friend would put them together. I was good at it from my high school days. I got to know a lot of the “hard core” bikers from different clubs and some of us actually became good friends. Actually the major biker gangs all started in San Bernardino back in 1950s, so I knew a lot of the hard core, old school bikers and became good friends with a lot of them. I never did get in a club though, at that time. A bunch of us just started hanging out together and riding together. I never got the tattoos like they all get…I just wasn’t into the tattoo thing. So everything was going good. I had my wife, two beautiful girls, and a nice little place we were living in. Everything was wonderful especially the holiday season. The girls loved Halloween. They wanted to have the perfect costume, and when we got home from a long night of going door to door dad had to go through the candy and make sure it was “good”. Thanksgiving was a big, fat feast, but of course the girls and I always fell asleep on the couch after dinner. Christmas was our special holiday, just like every other family, watching the kids open their presents, screaming in delight.

Adriana was the shy one. She had a little bit of a speech impediment and couldn’t say her “L’s” or “S’s”, and I think she was shy because of that. But Adrian was very outgoing, but not wild. She would just come up to you before Adriana would. Those girls were so close! They were always together.

Coffee with Mike (Part 2)

After High School I went to work and got a few funky jobs. They were all right for just being out of high school. The one I had the longest was Goldworthy Engineering, where I learned welding and the art of metal work and fabrication. It was around this time (about 1980) that I met Debby at a bar. Her legs caught my attention. It was a hot summer day and she had really short, little, pink shorts on. We were sitting at the bar and I asked her if she wanted to go out back and smoke a joint. She said, “Yeah, but you will have to take me home because I will be too wasted to walk home.” We kept hanging out afterward and would meet at the bar a couple times a week. We started going out to dinner. We would go back and forth between each other’s places. She was living with her mom and her two sisters at the time. She was four years older than me (12/6/53 was her date of birth). We dated a couple years before I proposed to her, and by the time I proposed to her we had been living together in my apartment for a while. The day I proposed to her we were both half lit up, and I said to her, “Why don’t we just get married…we are living together anyway?” And she said, “Ok.” So we got married, and that was that. No fancy proposal. We got married February 27th, 1981 in Long Beach, and Debby got pregnant right away. After a couple doctor’s appointments we found out Debby was pregnant with twins. I was excited, nervous, and very happy. It was a cool surprise. Debby had an easy pregnancy, and we had our two, beautiful, twin girls on January 8th, 1982 on Elvis Presley’s birthday. We named them Adrian and Adriana Lampton. I remember that day very clearly. It was an awesome day! Debby labored most of the day with the girls, but it was amazing to finally see them. They were my little girls, my special little girls. I was so overwhelmed with them. I couldn’t believe it! They were so little! It was an amazing feeling! I just couldn’t believe how small they were! How two little beings, that were a part of me, could be that small!?! They were mine! My little girls…part of my body…my blood. I wanted to be there every minute for them. I was their daddy…their protector!

Coffee with Mike (Part 1)

Hi All!
Well I am finally getting Mike's story on here to share.  I am sorry it is so long in coming...life just seems to keep happening around me and easily gets me off track it seems.  But I finally have gone through the interview tapes I have from when I met with him, and I am ready to share them.  I will have to post in sections though as it is quite long.  Just a note to you readers.  I really tried my best to keep Mike's testimony in his words and not mine.  I wanted you to feel as though you were listening to him...reading his own words and story, and not reading my representation of it.  When I was transcribing his story I often just typed exactly what he said, so as you read you are reading Mike share his story...not Ranae telling Mike's story.  Some parts of his life are pretty hard core.  When we talked he felt strongly about having his whole story shared because he hoped that people would learn from it...he hoped something good would come from something so bad.  I pray that is the case.  May you be blessed as you sit with Mike and share in his life Journey.
Now go grab a cup of coffee or tea, and sit with Mike for a little bit....

My name is Michael J. Lampton. I am 51 years old and was born in Denver, Colorado on November 15th, 1957 to my parents Harold & Charlene Lampton. I am the oldest of four kids. I have a sister named Kathleen and two brothers named Roger and Patrick.

I was about five or six years old when my family and I moved to Long Beach California. We all moved out there so that my dad could look for a job. He was a bad alcoholic, but managed to find a few jobs here and there to keep us going. When we first got to Long Beach he got hired as an auto-mechanic at a shop. My mom was always a stay at home mom. We eventually found a little house to move into which was right next door to Wesley United Methodist Church. It was the churches property and my mom got a job with them as a janitor to help pay for the rent on the little house. It was probably a 600-700 square foot house with four kids and two adults. The rent there was just $35 per month, hard to imagine these days! We lived there for 14 years until they eventually tore that little house down and we bought our own house there on the corner.

I did well through school. Not a whole lot to tell about school. I was in the Boy Scouts growing up. My dad was Scout Master, Weeblo’s leader and Cub Master. He went through all the scouting with us boys as we were growing up. My dad and I were close. My parents were involved in PTA. Every time there was something going on they were there.
 As a child I went to church at the church we lived next to. I was in junior choir and was a member of the youth group. Any time they had any kind of youth activities I was always there…that is until I turned 12. About that time I got out of it, but as far as Jesus being in my life…it was only as a child between the ages of 6 and 12. After that we stopped going to church , and stopped doing anything with the church. I don’t even know why. The only one who kept going was my mom. She went every Sunday. But us kids just drifted out of it. My dad never went, but he was the maintenance man for the church. Anything that needed to be done, he would do…plumbing, painting (he painted the whole church twice, and it was a huge church). He knew everybody that went to the church. Everybody liked him and he liked everybody, but he never attended a service unless it was a Christmas or Easter service.

Six or seven years after we moved to Long Beach my dad got really heavy into alcohol. I was about 10 when this started happening. He would get his paycheck and would be gone for a couple weeks, and then would come home like there was nothing wrong or nothing ever happened. I remember my mom driving around town with me in the car and she would stop at all these bars and I would have to run in and look through the front door to see if he was sitting there. I did that for a long, long time….a couple years probably. I hated doing that because I was either ratting on him if he was sitting there at the bar, or I would be lying to her if I would say that he wasn’t there. I didn’t like getting caught up in that mix. I am not sure what made my dad change like that. He never mentioned anything about his childhood. I never did see my dad drunk. He would do this every couple months or so, but I never did see him drunk because he would always sober up before he came home, and he would always take us kids to a store and buy us a toy when he got home. I guess that was his way to relieve his guilt or something…I don’t know. When my dad would go away for two weeks I did feel like I had to take over some of his part of the responsibility as head of the household. This went on for five or six years. I think it was really tough on my mom, but she always played it off and when he came home there was no arguing or fighting. There were no repercussions for him doing that. I don’t know what was said behind closed doors of course. Back then in the late 60’s and early 70’s it wasn’t that big of a deal for the husband to be the alcoholic and run around…not like it is today. It was known but it was kept within the family and a few close friends. I always loved and respected my dad. I didn’t hate him. What he did was just something I grew to know….something we all just accepted. I didn’t even know it was wrong for a while because it seemed so normal. As far as I know he did everything he was supposed to do as a father. What finally made my dad stop was that my mom had given him an ultimatum. I found the letter on top of the refrigerator one day. She kicked him out and he was staying in a motel. He was begging her to come back and said he would never do it again. I think he was gone two or three weeks, and when he finally came home he kept to his word and didn’t do it anymore.

 I went to Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California. During High School I started meeting new people, and all my buddies were the car and motorcycle guys. We got into racing our cars, but the guys and I didn’t get in a lot of trouble…maybe just once in a while when we were racing up and down the street. We built our own little funky motorcycles. They wouldn’t go over 10 mph, but we didn’t care we still thought we were pretty hard core. You know…long hair, beards, wanna-be outlaws, drinking and smoking pot. On the weekends we would go to somebody’s house with a bunch of beer and pot and party. We stayed clean during the week for the most part, but had fun on the weekends. I only had a couple girlfriends in high school. I wasn’t really into them much. My group of friends and I were more into motorcycles. We weren’t the jocks that all the girls wanted. I graduated High School in 1976 with a 3.4 grade point average, so I did pretty good in school and enjoyed it.

(Check back soon for the next post from Mike...)

The Unexpected...

I promise...I haven't forgotten about the blog.  It has actually been on my mind a lot lately.  But life...well life is good at throwing curve balls that you don't quite expect.  I had a curve ball come this week.  Actually, let me go back to January 1st and share a little bit about what 2010 has looked liked for our family so far.  Note:  I know this blog is about the homeless, but ultimately I think it is about sharing stories...getting to know who people are and what they have gone through...peeling away the outer layers so you see the person underneath.  No I am not homeless (though I feel like our family could be right on the verge of it, but thankfully we have loving family and friends who would never let us be on the streets and without a roof over our heads), but I am going to let you take an intimate peek into our life this past month and five days.  I guess if I am going to share intimate things about other people's lives I have to be willing to do the same with my own....otherwise I suppose I would be a bit of a hypocrite.

So January 1st, 2010 was a fun day for our family.  Not only was it the start of a new year, which I was ready for...2009 was tough in many ways....but it was also the day we found out our family was going to expand.  We had been trying for about 4 months to get pregnant.  It didn't happen as quickly as I expected.  With Naomi I got pregnant the same month I stopped taking birth control, but this time it took a little longer.  Might have been due to extra stress in our lives from financial situations we are going through.  Or it could just be God wanted us to wait a little longer...to learn patience.  Whatever the case I found out early in the morning on January 1st that I was pregnant with our second child.  We couldn't keep it secret for long.  Family knew within the day and friends knew within days.  We were so excited...how could we keep it a secret?  I know some people wait until they are in the "safe zone"...you know...they just want to be sure they won't have a miscarriage.  The thought crossed my mind, but I figured it wasn't going to happen to me.  It doesn't run in my immediate family.  I was healthy, and if for some crazy reason it did...I would want the support and prayers of the people around me.  So we shared openly with everybody that we were expecting our second baby!  What fun news to share...babies are always a blessing!

The month moved along slowly due to the fact that I quickly started feeling sick soon after finding out I was pregnant.  I was sick my entire pregnancy with Naomi, so this was normal for me...through I was hoping and praying it wouldn't last the entire pregnancy, just the normal 1st trimester.  Each week I would go online and look at my baby's progress for the week. What was he doing now?  How big was he?  Following along on my baby's journey was fun, and helped me feel more connected to him.  I call the baby him because Mat and I were both hoping for a boy.  Mat was the first to start referring to the baby as him...speaking out what he wanted to be truth.  We have always both wanted two children...one girl and one boy.  We have our beautiful daughter Naomi, and were praying that this next child would be our little boy.  Of course whatever we have we will be happy and thankful for, but our hearts long for that little boy.  Whether he comes through birth or adoption we will have a son one day.

On Wednesday the 27th, I got a call from a case worker with the state that Naomi and I both qualified for OHP (Oregon Health Plan)!  Boy that was a good day, and so refreshing to have some more good news!  I was NOT expecting that they would say that I qualified, but because I was pregnant I did.  Praise God for his provision!  With OHP my entire pregnancy would be paid for...we would have no out of pocket expenses on our part!  I can't tell you how good that news was to hear!  All the case worker needed was for me to provide proof I was pregnant. No problem!  I was definitely pregnant, I was fighting nausea while we talked...I was definitely pregnant.  I went that afternoon to the Pregnancy Resource Center in Bend to get my proof of pregnancy, and have them fax it off right away.  I took the test and right away the stick verified there was a beautiful baby growing inside me.  We faxed off the form to the case worker, and before I left, the ladies working there let me know that if I was interested I could have a free ultrasound at their Redmond clinic.  Well of course I would take advantage of a free ultrasound!  It would be my chance to take a look at my little guy and have him measured to see how far along he and I really were.  They called Redmond and scheduled me an appointment for Monday, February 1st at 2:00.  I just had to wait 5 days and I would get to go in and see my little guy!  How fun, and what an unexpected surprise!

So Monday the1st came.  I woke up excited for the day ahead.  Naomi and I went to lunch at Subway, and I took her to the indoor playground to get her energy out with other little kids her age.  It was fun watching her run and play with the other kids.  Her new favorite thing is going down the slide by herself!  It is so cute to see how proud she is of her accomplishments!  We left the play-center and headed home where my mom met us, and at 1:00 we headed to Redmond for the ultrasound.

The nurse called us in and we chatted a little bit.  Sharing our excitement for being moms and what a wonderful miracle birth is.  She got me on the table and jelled up my belly.  My mom and Naomi were by my side.  The nurse said not to worry that the first few minutes she was just going to get a feel for where everything was in my body, so not to be concerned that she wouldn't be saying anything for a few minutes.  No problem!  I waited, excited to have her turn on the screen and show me my little guy growing inside me.  After a while of looking she said, "I am not hearing or seeing a heartbeat.  Do you want me to turn on the screen, or keep looking for the heartbeat?"  I wasn't concerned...I was sick, tired, experiencing all that I knew being pregnant felt like, so I told her to take her time and find the heartbeat and then we could turn on the screen.  But after another short period she still couldn't find any life.  What?  How can there not be any life?  I just had a test and was told I was pregnant!  I feel pregnant...how can there be no life?  If this was my only chance to see my baby I wanted to see him now, so I asked to have the screen turned on (picture above was taken during this visit).  There he was...measuring in at 6.5 weeks, even though he should have measured at 9 weeks.  But there was no movement.  No heartbeat.  Even the yolk sac didn't look like what a baby at 6 or 9 weeks should have. I was devastated and heartbroken...how did it happen?  Why?  What did I do?  But there were no answers.  I just needed to call my doctor and make sure I got seen as soon as possible.

On the drive home (thankfully my mom was with me and drove back to Bend) I called my doctor and they wanted me to come into Central Oregon Radiology as soon as I got back into Bend so that I could get an "official" ultrasound done.  So with a ray of hope that I would get different news, we headed there.  Mat met us there, and soon I was in having another ultrasound done.  But the news was the same...there was no life...no heartbeat.  I felt like I lost a piece of myself.  Just that morning I woke up pregnant...dreaming of the year ahead...the holidays we would share with our new addition.  Now those dreams were gone.  My baby had died 2 1/2 weeks earlier and I had no idea.  How could I not feel it?  How could I not know that something was wrong?

My doctor offered me three options...1. Wait until my body naturally lets go of the baby.  2. Take medication that will help my body go into labor within a few hours.  3. Have a D&C procedure, where I would be put asleep and they would go in and take the baby out.  I didn't want to draw out this awful experience any longer, so I opted to just take the medication.  It had already been 2 1/2 weeks and my body hadn't naturally let the baby go, so who knew how much longer it would take?  This was already in the books for one of the worst days I have experienced so far, so I might as well just finish it off that way instead of dragging out the inevitable.

That night I went to my moms, and Mat kept Naomi at home.  I took the medication at 7:30 pm, which was horrible and felt so unnatural.  I struggled with the feelings that I might be taking my baby's life...what if both the ultrasounds were wrong?  What if he was living, and now I WAS KILLING HIM.  What if God healed his little body, and I wasn't giving God a chance to do a miracle in my child?  Was my faith that weak?  But I took the medication and waited....the doctor said it could take 30 minutes to a couple hours to take effect.  Well each hour ticked away...."God please don't drag this out any more!"  I prayed over and over that He would just bring this horrible thing to a close.  By 4:30 am on the morning of the 2nd, what I think was the baby and placenta came out.  Exhausted I finally got to go to sleep, and I pretty much did that the next two days.  My bed was my comfort, and sleep my escape.

This week has been exhausting and emotional.  It is still weird for me to wrap my mind around the fact that September 7th I won't be having my baby.  That Naomi isn't going to be a big sister just yet.  My heart hurts and feels the loss.  Even though the baby was still very early along in its journey of life...it was still my baby.  My belief is that at conception life forms and begins, so for me I lost a baby...a human being.  I had read something at the Pregnancy Resource Center that around 7 or 8 weeks the baby has all the parts and features of a grown adult, but it all just needs to develop and grow.  Life is such a miracle!  It is so amazing how God brings everything into perfect order for a baby to grow and develop inside the mom!  It amazes and humbles me whenever I think about it!

So January 1st we found out we were adding a new addition to our family of three in 2010, and on February 1st we found out our child was in heaven with his heavenly Father.  I still don't understand the "whys" behind this.  But I trust and believe that when God says that He will work ALL THINGS out for my good that He WILL.  He will turn this ugly situation into something beautiful.  I trust one day I will look back and see little rays of light shining through what looks to me to be a totally black and ugly situation.  I trust He will give us our second child when He is ready.  Life is full of lessons and I will, and have learned some new ones this past week.

Thank you to each of you who have prayed for our family this week.  Thank you for the love and encouragement.  Thank you to those who have brought us a meal.  Thank you to each of you who have opened up and shared your story with me about how you lost a child of your own due to a miscarriage.  It amazes me how many people can relate to this story!  People I never realized have gone through this have...some multiple times.  I would never ever wish this on anybody, but there is comfort knowing I am not alone.

So I share all this just so you know:  1. Why I have been slow in getting Mike's story on here, and 2. So you can see a little more into who I am...especially for those of you who may stumble upon this site and not know who I am at all.

Have patience my friends...Mike's story is coming soon.  I know you will be blessed when you read it!  I have been challenged personally as I sit and listen to him on the recorder and put it on paper.  You will enjoy meeting Mike as he shares his story with you!

So stay tuned...there is more to come...soon!

Make the most of every opportunity...

So every "good" writer creates anticipation and excitement for what is ahead right? Well I have a little something to share that will hopefully create excitement for stories that are to come. As I share these things on this blog it is almost like I am making a commitment to you all (though I am not even sure who "you" all are just yet) to stick with this, and not overlook the little opportunities I have been given.

Last night at JOURNEY (the church I go to here in Bend, OR) I sat next to a friend named Skip who I met at JOURNEY about a year or so ago. He is homeless and lives on the streets in a tent with one of his friends, and his other loyal companion and friend...his dog. He is what you would picture a classic homeless man to look like...long beard, dirty clothes, and always smelling a little like alcohol. For some reason I have been blessed to get to know him a little better than I know even some of the regulars at JOURNEY, and we always make a point to catch up with each other when we see one another. He also enjoys saying hi to my daughter, and the random hug she offers. You know the innocence of children is truly beautiful! If only we could all look at people through the eyes of children, and not see them through the lens that our society teaches us to look through...but through eyes that simply see a human, another person just like us. Man we have so much to learn from those precious little ones!

So as I mentioned, Skip sat next to my mom and I last night. After the service the three of us were visiting, and he was telling us where he is camped out in town now. Seems the police keep him on the move, as some of the locations he chooses to set up camp are not always the most appropriate spots for someone to be living in their tent. Skip tends to be a fairly private person in many regards, but I worked up the courage to ask him if he has ever shared his life story in writing. After the jokes about it taking months to write all the things down that have happened to him, he looked at me very seriously and told me he couldn't tell me about his life...it would be too hard for me to hear. After a little more talking and encouragement on the part of my mom and I he finally decided to share a piece of it with us...maybe he was testing us to see how we responded? Not sure...but what he shared broke my heart, not so much because of what I heard, but because of how I saw that it still broke his heart. Very bluntly he told us that when he was in "Nam" he killed a baby. He explained that he had no other option at the time, but hates himself for it and has never been able to escape the images of that act. Tears welled up in his eyes as he once again relived the memory of that horrific time in his life. I gave him a hug and told him I was sorry he had to go through such a difficult experience. In the end he agreed to meet with my mom and I next Sunday for lunch and at that time he will gives us the complete story. Then with his approval, I will pass that story on to all of you. I believe that it will be another story that will impact us all, and change the way we see the homeless around us.

That brief interaction with Skip last night encouraged me all the more that, even though someone chooses to live on the streets like Skip does, there is always something significant in their life that brought them to the point of believing that life on the streets is more normal than having a home and family--that life on the streets is safer than the alternative. For Skip it almost seems to me that in his heart of hearts he doesn't think he deserves anything better because of what he did to that baby. It is apparent it still haunts him today. May this little insight remind us to have a little extra patience as we come across homeless people in our day to day lives. I know when I hear all of Skip's story I won't be able to even imagine myself walking in his shoes, and will have a greater respect for the man he is and what has brought him to where he is today.

So now not only do you have Mike's story to look forward to reading, but Skip's as well. :-)

Blessings and love,
Ranae