Apples

This story could/can hit many of us where it hurts the most. Whatever that is. This ain't no fairy tale. Wasn't meant to be.

It was terribly cold. Snow was falling, and it was almost dark. I felt like I was walking around in a black-and-white photo where everything was shades of gray, including the sky. There were no stars on this night. It wasn’t the stars that I turned my face to the sky to see. I was looking for the Lord. I didn’t see Him. I saw apples. Apples by the bushels. I blinked my dry eyes to blink away the dryness and take another look. Apples again. This time it was apple pies. The entire sky filled with apple pies. I could see the steam coming from them and smell the cinnamon.

I had to bring my eyes back parallel to the ground before I fell out from the dizziness of looking up for so long.

I was wandering around because homeless people have no place to be and nowhere to go.

 I set to thinking about things that had been ever present in the forward-most part of my brain. Those thoughts chose today to come out. Just let them, I thought out loud. I’m cold. Too cold to care about what people are thinking about me as I talk to the only friend I have left. Me. 

I chuckled out loud when I watched people as they crossed the street so they wouldn’t have to walk past me. I stopped and stared at them for a minute. They would have liked the old me. Wow! In the not-so-distant past, I’ve done that very thing, crossed the street to stay away from people like, like me. This hit me like a punch in the gut. I threw up. 

 I needed to talk to the Lord, but it seems He was too busy for me right now. But apparently, He wasn’t too busy for apples. I wasn’t looking up, but the smell of cinnamon was still stuck in my nose. Just like it did when I was an itty bitty kid just about nose high to the kitchen table staring at a hot apple pie that mamma had set there to cool. From a bird’s-eye view, I could see the steam and smell of the cinnamon coming from that apple pie. Like the ones I just saw in the sky. I nodded a thank you to Him for this little girl’s memory. I hoped He heard me.

 I walked down through the clearing, ending up under “the” bridge where the homeless camp was. They would have a burn barrel going and I could warm myself

More questions started leaking out of my brain. I was too tired to stop the process. Once I loosed the reins, I couldn’t… stop… thinking. Out loud.

 Like, how did I get here? Not here, here. But sixty-four and homeless here. Never in a million years would I have thought I’d end up this way. The answer “Life happens” or “that’s just life” is a pat answer and I don’t much care for it. There had to be a better answer. There had to be a reason. Had to be.

How does a person who worked as hard as I did, end up like this? I didn’t do everything right but kept trying, getting up, and working hard at every job I ever had, earning the promotions that came with a job well done.

I never told a person no who asked for my help. Well, where are you, Karma? Did you forget about me too? My deck should be stacked, stacked I say, to the ceiling by now, and you are nowhere to be found. Shame on you, girl!

When the pandemic hit, it seemed like the world came to a screeching halt. That bit of bad business took my job, then my home, and just for kicks my health. Mercury went into retrograde and forgot to come out of it. All bets were off.

I was thinking about how the world was not kind anymore. People are mean. Even me. How did I become mean? I’ve never liked mean people, especially mean old ladies. I swore I’d NEVER be a mean old lady. I was supposed to be like my mamma and her mamma. They were like Edith from a sitcom back in the day. And yet, here I am, a mean old lady. How in the H-E-DOUBLE HOCKEY STICKS did that happen?

 Well, (deep subject for a shallow mind) never say never as they say.

I was a walking, talking, freezing lunatic laughing my lunatic head off, at the irony of it all. Homeless and meanness are two of the many things I said I would never be. There’s that NEVER again. I can’t remember the last time I laughed, but it felt too good to stop. My eyes weren’t dry anymore, either. They were wet with happy, ironic, lunatic tears.

 I was still laughing and talking to myself when I finally arrived at the homeless camp.

 Everybody looked at me like I was crazy, and looked around and behind me to see who was with me. Nobody. Just me. Then, they recognized my condition for what it was, delusion brought on by freezing temperatures, loneliness, and malnutrition. Big Pot-Bellied Claude, his friends nicknamed him that because they said he looked like a pot-bellied stove whenever he stood by the fire, with his long red beard, round belly, and wore-out Bibb overalls. He wore the name with pride. I was proud to be one of his friends. He gently took me by the hand and led me to the fire. He gave me his spot at the burn barrel, put a warm mug in my hand, and told me to drink. I couldn’t get it to go down. He coaxed me into giving it another go, "to get my strength back," he said.

Someone spoke up, wishing everybody a “Happy New Year!”

Fist bumping, hugging, and laughter followed.

 I laughed with a low laugh meant only for me. Someone noticed my shoulders heaving and wanted in on it. I told them I was marveling at how kind and happy everybody was. How they were nice to me, a stranger, and how thankful I was for them. I was thankful to be counted amongst the Lord’s ” Least of These.” I didn’t know I had said that part out loud and that people heard me until someone said, “Welcome to the club”. Everybody laughed. No one took offense.

I thought about the odd twist of fate that brought me here. I had given up on the world. Humanity. Only to find it around a burn barrel surrounded by the” Least of These.”

I looked up into the night sky again.

Big Pot-Bellied Claude saw me and caught me on my way down. He sat on the freezing ground and let me rest my head on his lap. I asked him if he could see all those apples in the night sky. I didn’t hear his reply. 

 As I lay dying, I heard the Lord whisper to me,” I Am the fate that brought you here. I did it so you could die amongst some of the kindest souls ever placed upon this earth who, including yourself, are the “Apples of my Eye.”

I smiled.