Thank you, Bill

… for taking me home.

Today was Thanksgiving (in Canada). Like many others, I left the city this weekend to visit with my family (I was joined by my two sisters). My parents are about to enter their 60s now and have just traded their house in the suburbs for a small place on the water in a township about an hour or so outside the city. They don’t have steady jobs anymore, but also don’t have enough to retire. None of that mattered today because this little home on the water is a dream come true for them.

This morning we all woke up, said goodbye to the old house, and drove over to see my grandfather. It’s his 84th birthday today and though he doesn’t remember me (he has dementia), his face still lights up when I smile at him. It’s all we need really. We feel at home in each other’s eyes.

After all the visits, the catching up, and the goodbyes, I returned to my apartment in the city. I rode around a bit on my bike, stopping in the park to watch people soak up a rare October sun. Eventually I settled into a coffee shop to finish some writing.

As I sat comfortably, my headphones in and my fingers flying, a homeless man with one arm approached. He asked if he could sit across from me. Of course he could.

We sat without speaking for a while. I continued to write, but removed my headphones on the off chance he wanted to talk. I looked up from my laptop after a few minutes and noticed an engineer’s ring on his pinky finger. I asked. Indeed he was. We began to talk some more.

His name is Bill. He thinks he might be about 60 now. In 1980, he lost his arm in a mining accident while working for Inco in Sudbury. He hitchhiked his way to Toronto over 3 days that year and has lost most of his faculties from over 30 years of drinking away the pain. His wife and two daughters still live near the mine. They want to forget.

Some nights he sleeps on the roof of a house near my apartment. We laughed about the fact the residents didn’t know. He wouldn’t let me buy him food (he was adamant). He asked if I would buy him beer. I wouldn’t. I was adamant.

We opened Google Maps together. I showed him the road he had hitchhiked from Sudbury to Toronto. We looked up images of the Inco plant. I asked him what his last name was, but he didn’t want to tell me. I suspect he knew that I might find an article about his accident online. I didn’t push him — we were getting too close to a different time now and I could see he was scared to go back.

All he wanted was to go home. Home. All I could hear was the word “Home” in every breath. It meant so much more than a house when he said it. It was the mine. It was the dignity of a job. It was a sense of being. He was Bill, a miner from Sudbury with two working arms, a degree in engineering, a beautiful wife, and two lovely daughters. That’s what “Home” was for him. Every time he said it I noticed how similar his eyes looked to those of my father.

We landed on an aerial image of the mine. He broke down in tears and cried into his hand. “I just want to go home” he sobbed quietly.

I closed the computer and did my best to console him. I said to him that it takes a tremendous amount of strength to keep going — to be away from home. He said to me, “I’m doing the best I can.” I said to him, “You’re doing great.” He looked up and we smiled at each other. And for that one moment, he was a little closer to Home.

I’m not sure which of us was more thankful for that moment today.