We first meet him around November. He’s living under a bridge and terminally ill. He soon begins to think of us as friends visiting. Sometimes he is able to eat, but most of the time, he cannot. He has sought medical care recently and been told that there’s nothing that can be done to help him.

Sometimes when we see him he is able to get up and stand and talk with us, while we hand out food to everyone–sometimes he will take it, but sometimes he knows it is pointless. He tells us a little about his life, over the next few months and we watch as he shrinks before our eyes. He speaks lovingly of his grandmother and her ‘good homecooked food’. Sometimes he is in so much pain, that he has to stop to catch his breath, but he enjoys his ‘visits’ from his friends. He learns all our names, and each and every time we see him, he thanks us with great sincerity—for everything we do for all those like him on the streets.

His terminal illness has been caused by alcohol abuse. As the months go by, sometimes in order to be able to eat, because he is so very hungry, he will get himself drunk—being drunk deadens the pain that results from taking in food. He knows that it is too late for him, there’s no way to heal all the damage his body has sustained from the earlier years of constant alcohol abuse. Every encounter, he’s a gentleman, so pleased to have visitors.

In late April or so, he tells us it is time for him to go to the hospital—he is getting his courage up to this challenge. He says if we don’t see him in a couple of days, it is because he has made the decision and has gone for help. The next time we go, he is not there——the others say that he has ‘checked himself into rehab’. We’re uncertain if that’s accurate, but hope that he is inside somewhere, being cared for.

From the first time we met him until he disappears off the street—-we suspect that he has not had a shower, nor a change of clothes. As his size diminishes, there are more layers of dirt that cling to him, but cannot hide the wasting away of his body.

When he is no longer under the bridge………I can’t help it, I start reading the obituaries. I know his full name. Days, weeks go by and it does not appear.

Earlier this week one of his friends from the streets stops us and asks if we know the latest about him. We say we are not up to date and tense ourselves, waiting to hear what this man has to say about the absent man. He tells us he went to visit him earlier that day in the hospital and that ‘it doesn’t look good’……he says he had hoped to see us soon so he could tell us, he wanted us to pray for the man, and we say we will, and that we will go visit him. The man tells us he is in a nursing home.

Yesterday we go to the nursing home, are given his room number and go to the room……he’s not there. His roommate tells us he was admitted back into the hospital on an emergency basis. We do some detective work and discover where he is—and we go there.

There’s a woman sitting next to him, and a man on the other side. We introduce ourselves, the woman is his sister, the man is an outreach worker who brought him to the hospital from the bridge where he was……not living……..but dying.

As I walk closer to him, I cannot believe we are in the correct room———–but the name is correct, the story/background is correct———this is him………

The sister says he has not been conscious today, that it is a matter of time, and they are ‘keeping him comfortable’. And that he has told her all about all his friends on the street, and those who came to visit him, bringing soup and water.

He had nearly disappeared in front of us while he was still under the bridge….wasting away…….but I am shocked that he has shrunk even more since we last saw him. His eyes are fixed, he does not see us, does not hear us. His skin is so yellow—-I’ve seen sick people before with yellow skin, but this is startling.

We stay a little while, searching for something to say, some comfort to give to the sister. We tell her he was always a gentleman when we saw him and she smiles through her tears, saying that has always been his nature. She looks at him with pain in her shining eyes, but there’s also a glimpse of peace settling in her eyes. She knows it won’t be much longer, and she’s content to sit with him until the end.

We say our goodbyes, she thanks us, gives me a hug and we leave. That was 12 hours ago………I doubt if she is still there, I suspect she was soon free to leave.

By Linda Cuff