‘...and what do you miss most?’ I asked him. He looked in my eyes and said, ‘our oven baked bread, thick cream (kaymak) and honey’. He looked at me, trying to smile with an effort. A smile that was full of more sadness than happiness. A fake smile that was betrayed by the longing that filled his eyes...a sweet reminiscence from a fading memory of another life. It was the second time I talked to him. The first was when I saw him lying there on the ground next to the back wall of the supermarket, all bundled up under some big rags and a worn-out blanket. I had noticed his piercing dark eyes, gazing into an emptiness...almost like a lost madman reminded of his own sanity not so long ago. He looked like one of us, a sad immigrant story character. From his looks, the heavy ungroomed hair and beard, dark tanned face, chipped lips and worn-out clothes, I could tell he must have been living on the streets for a long time…a young man aged before his time. His name was Riza, he had told me in the short chat we had had that first time.
He was a silent sort, and I shied away from asking too many questions. But on that second meeting he told me that he was from Iran and had been in Toronto many years. He would not tell me what had gone wrong or why he had ended up living on the street, and I did not persist on finding out his story. The only thing he told me was that he wanted to be back where he had come from. He had impressed me when on both occasions he had refused the money I had offered him. He had accepted my cigarettes but not my charity. I liked that. He was the first homeless person I had ever met and talked to. I really did not know how to go about it or what I could do for him. So, for my next visit, I went to a Greek supermarket to buy a container of thick cream and some honey. Then from a bakery I got some Italian bread and went to Riza. He was still sleeping when I got there, so I waited around until he woke up. I had gone too early in the morning, a bit excited imagining the joy I would see in his eyes on finding out what he would have for breakfast.
He woke up eventually, but he was in a very silent mood as if in another realm. I approached him with my shopping bag and took out what I had bought for him and placed them in front of him. I said to him, ‘Cream, honey and freshly baked bread! These will not be as delicious as the ones back home but maybe you will be happy’. He took one of the containers in his hand, examined it closely and then with his broken English, he said, ‘please my friend, don’t do things like this. I get used to it and then I will want it again. You are here now, but maybe you will not be another day. Not good for me’!
In a way, I was disappointed. Not because Riza had not shown the excitement that I had imagined. It was more a disappointment at myself for not knowing any better. Years ago, a friend told me that feeding the birds in the backyard would be wrong if you cannot do it consistently. The birds become dependent on you and lose their ability to fetch food for themselves. If you miss feeding them, they starve to death eventually. I had been impressed by her logic, but I had always thought human creatures were better at survival. But what about compassion gestures while one can show just for that day when someone is in need? Today is today and tomorrow is another day…someone else will help if I cannot. Not so, as Riza had just shown me. A first lesson in a series of many…lessons I learned in the many encounters I had with homeless people throughout my life.
I visited Riza maybe five times in all and then one day, he disappeared. Nobody around the supermarket knew where he had gone to. I always imagined that some miracle happened and he went back to Iran. I thought of him many times as the years passed. Then around 2004 or so, I remember it was a cold winter, I read in the newspaper a short piece of news about two or three deaths of some homeless people that had happened on the extremely cold night the day before. The city workers who usually helped the homeless with the food delivery program at night during cold weather, had found the bodies. There were no pictures with the news but one of the names was Riza, an Iranian, and they indicated his age and the fact that he had lived on the streets for over twenty years. Everything fits the Riza I had met. You can of course imagine how sad I must have felt on reading the news. But I assure you that I have never stopped imagining that a miracle had really happened and that the Riza in the news was another homeless…a big coincidence!
