For Judy: Dedication To The Plight Of The Homeless

The last time I saw you it was in San Diego's Gas -Lamp District. You were carrying a brown paper bag and a tattered newspaper in your hands. What was that haunting look in those once beautiful brown eyes? Why were your lips smiling but your eyes were not? What was the real reason you refused to share a meal with me? Did you think I would be ashamed to be seen with you because of your unwashed street apparel? Am I not your "Sister-Cousin Vicki, who comforted you when the imaginary shadows came in the night as we crept through the many rooms of our grandmother's house in Denver? Wasn't I always there to hold you as winter night chill warmed into day? I have aged, but I am still that same person, aren't I, Judy? Tell me, aren't you just a little afraid of the real shadows that follow you along the deserted streets of the cities you visit throughout California? Or has that jagged piece of glass stem that you carry made fear seem unreal? Yes, I saw it when you were sorting through your various papers, identification, small photos of your son and daughter. It was wrapped securely in napkins as not to break it any further. I saw the careful way you handled it, attempting to shield it from my view as you quickly pointed to the clipped newspaper article from the West word touting your son as an up and coming gang member. Why did you try and hide it from me? We were introduced to smoking coke at a white boy's party in Boulder when we did a hit on a bong that had tentacles with face-masks attached. Remember? Fun. Big fun. During the next five years, a marathon use we called "baseball" (our code for freebasing") negatively impacted our close relationship. Thinking I could do business as well as enjoy the fun aspect of it, my use escalated as a dealer high on my own supply. I became a boastful ,insensitive woman who altered my personality to fit the dangerous game of drug dealing. Money and cocaine changed me into a person I barely recognized. You were never interested in the business aspect of it. Primarily, you partied and found folks who wanted to do business with me. Ultimately, debts were incurred,and our relationship deteriorated because of them.

After a time, my health began to show the effects of living life in the sun, drugs, and always having fun. It started with a dry, hacking cough in 1985. I ignored it, primarily because I had been in top physical condition most of my adult life. One day, I went to have my annual checkup and the chest x-ray showed a grape sized spot on my lung. After my doctor did numerous tests and scans, he questioned me about my habits. I confidently answered that I didn't smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol but I did indulge in recreational drugs. Just a bit of marijuana. Just a bit of cocaine. In fun. Judy, little did I know, it was to be the deadliest game I would play in my life.

In the meantime, you'd gone to a rehabilitation program, recovered, relapsed and were running to the shadows. I heard from the family you were somewhere in Cali, looking for me. You would always go where I'd go; I could expect that. I was the thrill seeker, the adventurer. You were curious about life, but cautious in experiencing it unless I did it first. Our "sister-cousin" role to us was so intact that in my deepest anger, your deepest anger, we'd go search for one another....discreetly. I guess, then, I should have expected that you'd sense my danger in 1986. I guess I should have known you would be the one person to locate me in ICU at Scripps Memorial in San Diego waning from the cancer affecting disease of my "ball-playing" days. My attitude and will to live was nil. I was truly ready to die. I felt God was punishing me for abandoning Angela and other misdeeds associated with my addiction and death would be much more satisfying than trying to live. Until you entered the room to pick up my belongings, I had surrender to His apparent decision. How did you know where to find me, Judy? How could you find the strength to hold and plead with me not to die when I had deserted you in your addictive struggle because of dollar bills? How could you take the tall order of calling your aunt to tell her that I, her only child, was dying because I refused to undergo chemotherapy necessary to combat the cancerous cells in my lungs? One of the reasons I am here today is the assurance I saw in your eyes that day. I decided to fight when I saw in your eyes the fear of the malignant shadows melting my life away. You saw lifelessness in my eyes that day.......as I saw the day I left you carefully spreading newspaper along the sidewalk that would be your bed for the night.

Epilogue

Judy and I both returned to using cocaine for the next ten plus years and were sent to prison in California. After my release in 1992, I left San Diego and returned to Denver only to continue using though I was gainfully employed and living life differently. After her release in 1995, she stayed in Pasadena, and struggled with alcohol and cocaine abuse. In 1997,when my grandson, Adan was born, I made the decision to be a sober grandparent. It was not easy. I relapse several times and was jailed on a domestic violence charge stemming from drug use and excessive working to compensate for the money spent on the coke during my relationship. Finally, in 1999, after my mother's brain aneurysm and my father's Alzheimer's diagnosis, I was able to refrain from using. Their care was my responsibility and sobriety was necessary. My father's death in 2000 presented me with the trigger to use again, but, fortunately, I made a different choice. I chose to attend sessions with the therapist I found during the time I spent at Longmont Treatment Center for the domestic violence charge. Ironically, a few months later,Judy called from Lancaster, California to ask if I would come and get her because she had cancer. She only lasted three weeks after we returned to Denver, succumbing after a short stay in the hospital. I miss her dearly. Her cheery outlook on life, love, and all circumstances made everything brighter.