Using Grief to Help the Homeless
On the 21st of November, 2021, just a few weeks after I’d survived mastectomy surgery for triple-negative breast cancer and after I went through half a year of chemotherapy, my younger brother, Tim, ran in the Philadelphia Marathon and then died in his sleep later that night.
For the few short years following this tragedy, I’ve been unable to celebrate my birthday or much of anything, really, but this year, I finally wanted to mark my birthday on the 6th of October. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to celebrate my birthday, but I knew I wanted to somehow “mark” the day by doing something meaningful. So, without a real plan, I walked from Warren Street tube station to wherever my feet took me. I had thought I’d visit some interesting shops to buy something nice to eat that was special, but what happened was that I found myself in a state of shock, walking down Tottenham Court Road, taking in the vast amount of homelessness with tents nearly everywhere, mixed in around trendy expensive shops and being utterly ignored by the many tourists who navigated their way from one trendy shop to another while completely ignoring the poverty all around them.
Maybe I’m being harsh, and those tourists are great benefactors of people experiencing homelessness, but observing the majority of tourists just stepping over or not noticing the homeless people at their feet was heartbreaking. That day, I walked from Warren Street to Green Park and back, and along the way, I bought food for random homeless people and occasionally stopped to talk with a few to learn their stories. In some ways, I wished later that I’d asked my friends and family to celebrate my birthday by walking the London streets to help people experiencing homelessness. Still, I thought about the approaching day in November that brings such sadness to me. I thought that perhaps the best way to honour my brother’s memory was to go back to the streets of London with like-minded people who could help me bring much-needed supplies and help to people experiencing homelessness.
The 21st of November could be manageable, and I know with every fibre of my being that my brother would have joined me in this endeavour as he was always so caring to everyone he met.
During my appointment with my excellent Bioresonance therapist, Katrina Ramsay, of the Heartwood Clinic, I came up with the idea of helping people without housing on the 21st of November. She readily joined me in this endeavour, so we’ve set up an Amazon list to share with others who may be interested in helping us by donating much-needed clothing or food or supplies so that we can pack backpacks with the items and hand them out to people without housing on the 21st of November. Of course, I want to have as many backpacks to hand out as possible, but I’ve decided to pack 42 backpacks because my brother was 42 when he died. Numbers seem significant to me nowadays; perhaps it’s silly, but it brings comfort too.
I’m hoping this project can continue every month, so I have a lot of research to do.
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If you’d like to help us bring clothes, coats, toiletries, food and pet supplies to those impacted by homelessness, please consider donating any amount so we can buy these items and pack them into backpacks. Even the smallest donation can help enormously!
If you’re in the UK and want to purchase items from our Amazon wish list, please follow this link.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
- Franceska
