I have been blessed to acquire a second, part-time job recently. While only 10 hours a week, it is still nice to have something to cushion expenses, but also add purpose to life. NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Waco has hired me to be a peer support specialist. It is a fancy phrase for saying, "I have been hired to support, encourage, and provide resources to folks with mental illness on the basis that I have one and worked to overcome it." Presently I am placed at a strategic location to build up my clientele and build a report with the clients there. It is a local non-profit that tends to be a hub and safe haven for the homeless population of Waco and those who are among the poorest. It has been really great to sit down at a picnic table with folks and hear them tell their stories, as raw and honest as they could be.
I can't help but think of my brother, Carlos every day I am there. My brother was not well known, but I can confidently say he is my hero of heroes. The man battled paranoid schizophrenia for twenty years, terrified that someone was going to kill him. Yet, every single day, he kept living some how. At the time of his death, he was almost done graduating with his college degree. He would take the bus and ride his bike all alone, across St. Louis mind you, to go to his classes. Every day he would text our sister about people he was sure were wanting to, or planning to kill him--and he still went to class. I don't have that type of courage and determination!
Carlos was 10 years older than me. He was in foster care shortly after his diagnosis, so he never really had much to integrate him into adulthood. It was a struggle for him to figure it out on his own, which led to him being homeless for many years while I was growing up in elementary and junior high. He would be nomadic with his living arrangements, which would change with every hospitalization that he would have and he had many. Periodically, he would call or write, but he was never consistent with it. Our relationship was not well defined for me and I never really knew what to do about it, or how to improve it. It is one of the things that still bothers me after his death to be honest. I didn't realize the reality of what he went through as a homeless person until this job.
There's street life homeless people live to survive. They find ways to get food and water, but also find rest and have a sense of safety. Some live two miles out of town under an overpass because their afraid of getting hurt. Some live in groups in an abandoned building downtown. They have a certain determination to keep living life, regardless of the circumstances that led them to this present situation. One saying I hear often is, "My life purpose is to survive and keep pushing through the tough shit life hands me." The honesty of that sentence makes me pause for a moment.
Once in awhile I look at these people around me and I see my brother in every single one of them. "The absence of your presence is everywhere." I try so hard to respond with respect, dignity, and friendship because so many of them don't have any of it. And I often wonder, who was respectful to Carlos? Who gave him dignity? Who were his friends? When he was homeless, who gave him the last two dollars they had because he held up a sign--or did he ever hold up a sign? Then, I think of his home he had in St. Louis.
Carlos had an apartment at the time of his death that he was proud of. Our sister helped him get in touch with various services so that he didn't have to constantly lose his home with every hospitalization. He was able to afford his apartment in the worst side of St. Louis. The building was a four-plex and he had a studio. It was a decent size, but it was not in well-kept building. I can't even describe the environment properly except to say I could never live there, or be paid to live there. Carlos was so proud of his self-sufficiency. His plan was to eventually provide for himself completely and he was well into his goals for his recovery. My thoughts often reflect upon this chapter of his life. I wonder if he had any regrets? What would he say if a peer support specialist talked to him? What goals would he have in his recovery? What advice would he give people? And sometimes, I think about our relationship.
We sort of drifted apart over the years because he was so challenging to engage and interact with. Towards the end of his life, he was having audio and visual hallucinations. It was not uncommon to have a perfect normal conversation over the phone, only to find out later he called someone else in the family because he was so sure you said something you didn't. He would often ramble on and on, sometimes making sense, but sometimes--most times--not. And I wouldn't know what to do or say, so I would suddenly say, "Well, I gotta go!" I would end the conversation whenever it got too weird, only because I didn't know what else to do. I wonder now, what would have happened if I would have just listened a little bit longer? Often times I wonder if I told Carlos, "I love you," and if he actually knew that I did? This is the biggest thing I struggle with after his death: Regretting the way I loved him and how I showed him I loved him.
I suppose this job is more than a job to me. It is a way for me to honor my brother's legacy. A way to stare mental illnesses in the face and not be afraid anymore of the weird moments, or the hard moments. It is a way for me to show up in a life of another human being and say, "I see you. I hear you. I understand. You matter. You have a value and a purpose. You are loved." Of course, I may not say it with words, but with my actions. And every single minute I am clocked in, my brother is on my mind. I guess you could say, I work to honor his legacy.
Carlos' legacy of determination, hard work, and courage are things I hope I hold onto every single day of my life. I only wish his heart would have kept going long enough for us to reconnect and restore our relationship. And I will always hope he knew I loved him more than he ever knew.
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