The Conversation I Needed Was One With My Homeless Neighbor
Ever since election night, I had a feeling of despair that I wasn’t quite able to shake. Each day, either the idea that education was no longer valued, or that decency was a construct of the past, or that our common humanity was constantly being questioned in the world, was slowly eating away at me.
Earlier this week, a kind man approached me as I worked on my laptop at the neighborhood coffee shop. He asked if I would be willing to talk to him for a few minutes. He told me only a little about himself — he was almost 75 years old, and that he was ill — he had an infection that he might not beat.
I quickly understood from the few people looking at this interaction that he was also homeless, but that didn’t feel like reason enough not to give him my time.
One patron mouthed to me as I agreed to talk to this homeless man — “you are so nice.”
I’m not sure I felt nice, but it felt like the right thing to do. A few days from now, it would be Christmas, and in that spirit, dismissing a person who was older and sick didn’t quite feel right. While I am not a Christian, the Bible’s teachings and Jesus’s example were not lost on me, especially during this season.
So began my half hour with Valin Sweetwyne.
He shared stories of his childhood, his mother and his siblings; his father had passed when he was very young. He explained how he ended up on the street without a home, he shared how his siblings were doing today — one brother had passed, another was in jail, and he explained how he had lived homeless for 40 years taking care of himself for the most part.
While he spoke, I offered to treat him to some food, but he declined.
He made it very clear that he wanted only a conversation and that he wasn’t looking for a handout.
So we continued our conversation. I shared my background with him briefly and he shared his wisdom acquired over years of living — real living, not in front of a computer, but day-to-day, outdoors, figuring out ways to make ends meet without a home.
As I listened, I thought to myself, Valin was born in 1942 — during World War II. He was 22 when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. He had seen the realities of Brown v. Board of Education, and likely has memories of the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Rosa Parks, and speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., including the I Have a Dream speech.
Valin was a young black man during some difficult times in our country’s history; when hope was hard to come by, and equality and justice were hard to imagine.
His job loss from a janitorial position over four decades ago had cost him his apartment, and some misunderstanding about Social Security led him to lose some of his hard-earned money. Ever since then, he has been homeless.
Despite these hardships, he has endured.
In January, he will turn 75 years old. He maintains an infectious smile. He has daily conversations with others without asking for anything in return. He cares deeply about his neighbors, especially the many who have befriended him.
It was through my interaction with Valin, that I was able to once again feel hopeful. So I wrote him this short note — to say thank you.
Mansi H. Shah is an IP and technology law partner at Merchant & Gould, and a past president of SABA North America. She is an organizer of the Rise Above Conference. Before becoming an attorney, she was a coder in missile and satellite systems. Follow her on Twitter at @mansiesq.
