Even the lost can be found.

(Trigger warning: This story depicts mental issues, drug abuse and homelessness.)

It was early evening when my phone rang. I answered to the frantic voice of my ex-girlfriend's current partner. 

"I need your help. Dee has been gone for three days." 

My heart sank.

I knew before she told me Dee must be on a binge. Dee had a drug issue. When we dated it was alcohol, but after the break-up she turned to harder stuff. Of course she tried to blame me, the breakup, anything to not take accountability for her own actions. But the truth is she had a need to escape reality.

Because I had met her mother, I sympathized with her. Her childhood had not been the greatest and as an adult she still dealt with her mother. But, as I had told her on countless occasions, that was not a good enough reason to stay drunk, stoned, or whatever the high of the day was.  

I transgress. Back to the phone call. 

Vi was on the other line, I heard the tears in her voice. "I know where she is. She is at that hotel where they do crack and stuff. The one where the street people hang out and the hookers take their men." 

I had never been able to convince Dee to stop doing anything permanently, but sometimes when she was on a binge, I could talk her down after a few days. I lived an hour away, but the panic in Vi's voice told me this was not like other times. Dee might go out for a night, but she always returned home. For her to stay gone three days she was either really strung out or hurt. I had to find her.  

I told Vi I would be on my way soon, then I told my current partner what was happening. She didn't like the idea, but she understood. This wasn't about me going to help an ex who was in a little trouble. This was a possible life or death situation.  

An hour later I pulled up at Vi's house and together we went in search of Dee.  

She wasn't exaggerating when she described the hotel to me. It was a run-down two-story building in a bad part of town. A part of town neither of us had any business being in, but then neither did Dee and I was determined to get her out.  

Vi had spoken to Dee the previous day on the phone so she knew what room she was in. I was thankful I would not have to go door-to-door banging to find her. But I had been prepared to do so if necessary. Vi decided to stay in the car to make sure no one tried to steal it. I think she was too scared to see what I would find.

I cautiously approached the hotel and walked through a small foyer that connected to the hallway that would lead to the room where Dee was staying. 

I noticed what appeared to be a homeless man leaning against a wall in the foyer eyeballing me hard as I walked by. I kept my head down focusing on my task, praying to get in, get Dee, and get out. Finding the room, I knocked on the door. Silence came from the other side, so I knocked louder. I heard hushed voices coming from the other side of the door.

"Dee, it's Tammie. Let me in."  

"No, go away!" 

"Look I just drove an hour because Vi is worried about you. At least open the door, I want to make sure you're ok" 

I heard the scuffle of feet and a hesitation before the door slowly cracked open barely wide enough for Dee to peek through.  

"What do you want?" Her glazed eyes darted back and forth between me and the dark hallway behind me. 

"Who is it?'  

A voice from behind made her turn away from me, I placed my hand inside of the door to prevent her from closing it. 

"It's no one. Don't worry about it." 

I told her I wasn't leaving without her, so she needed to tell her friends it was fun, but it was time to go. Her plans didn't match up with mine as she informed me that she wasn't going anywhere and that I needed to leave before I got hurt. 

"Are you threatening me? I asked her. 

In all the years I had known her, no matter how messed up she was, she had never been physically violent. She had gotten angry and said mean things, she had stormed off, even punched a wall once but never raised a hand to me or Vi. 

"I am not leaving, the people I'm with are not nice people. In case you haven't noticed you're not at the Hilton hotel. Go home!" 

I got angry. I got angrier in that moment than I believed I had ever been with her. I had left my house and driven an hour, picked up her girlfriend, and risked myself to save her, and she was choosing to stay here? 

I yelled at her, I threatened her, I tried to push my way into the room. Actually, I did push my way into the room. What I saw mortified me. Three other women who looked as if they hadn't eaten or seen the inside of a shower in the current year, shared the room with her. One humped over a filthy chair, another propped up against a broken headboard, while the third one laid flat across the side of the bed. Various spoons and other drug paraphernalia were scattered everywhere. On the floor was something resembling dried vomit. I made sure to watch every step I took.  

I surveyed the room and looked at Dee who was now lying across the bed, her head on the stomach of one of the women who was staring blankly at the ceiling. It was a lost cause. I knew at that moment she wouldn't be walking out with me.  

I shook my head and told her she deserved whatever the future held for her, and this would be the last time she saw me.  

"Good." was the only reply she had as I closed the door behind me. 

As I entered the foyer to leave, I noticed the homeless man approaching me. He was at my side before I was able to hurry my pace. In the next instant I felt what I figured was a gun jammed into my side.  

"Give me your money." His breath reeked of cigarettes, alcohol and rotting teeth. 

"Jesus," I proclaimed, still angry at the scenario I just left. 

"Look, I don't have any money on me. I drove an hour to try to save a friend, who clearly does not want to be saved and now you want me to give you money that I don't have." 

"People like you don't care about saving people like me." By this time, he was holding my coat pointing at me to empty my pockets. I obliged his request proving there was not even change in any of my pockets, jeans, shirt, or coat.  

He then asked where my car was and as I pointed to the parking lot, I saw Vi lock the doors before disappearing into the floorboard. The man ordered me to walk. I didn't have any idea what his plans were, but I wasn't going to allow anyone to tell me I didn't care.  

"How can you tell me I don't care. You don't know me or anything about me. I seriously left my warm home and my family and drove an hour to try to get my friend out of this hellhole where she has been junking out for the last three days." 

The man pushed me forward by my arm, walking me in a bent position. His pace slowed down as we talked. 

"You're not lying to me?" 

"You have a gun pointed to my side, why would I lie?" 

"Because I have a gun pointed to your side." 

"Well, I'm not lying. I really do care. I care about her; I care about you. Why are you living like this? Surely you can do something different." 

The walk to the car was brief and words were exchanged the whole way. By the time we arrived at my car I was walking without his assistance, side by side. He told me to tell my friend she could up from the floor, he wasn't going to hurt either one of us. I motioned for her to get up, which she did with much hesitation. 

Then the wildest thing I have ever seen occurred. The man started crying. Yes crying, and in an even more bizarre twist, he pulled all the money he had out of his pockets and tried to give it to me.

"I really don't have a gun. I was just using my fingers making it feel like I had a gun. It always works because people are usually too scared to really feel anything. They just give me their money and go."

He said he couldn't remember the last time anyone had stopped to have a conversation with him that didn't involve the buying or selling of drugs and he couldn't remember the last time anyone told him they cared. 

About him or anyone he knew for that matter. 

Then, I have no idea what overtook me, but I felt it to my core, and I had to do it. I grabbed him in a bear hug, and held him heart to heart. I told him I really did care. At this point we were both crying.​

I cried for him and the loss of my friend and for every person like him that was lost in the darkness of the life I was seeing. He cried for the thought that someone saw the human in him, not just the homeless addict. 

"I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to live this life. Please take this money. It will make me feel better." He hung his head as he held out a wad of cash. His hands looked thin and dirty, and I wondered how long it had been since he had done an honest days work. 

I closed my hand around his wrapping his fingers around the change he held out. 

"There is a Waffle house across the street," I pointed to the building across the road. "Go there now and use this money to buy a newspaper and some breakfast. Look for job. I believe you can change. I know you want to." 

He shook his head as he wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand. I noticed Vi in the car visibly gagging. How his smell and filth wasn't getting to me could only be called a gift from God, in that moment I knew I was surrounded by Angels. We all were. 

He opened the car door, and I sank into my seat still not sure of what I had just experienced.  The whole ride back to Vi's she questioned me about Dee and the homeless man. I shared with her what I saw and told her that it was time for her to let Dee go as I had done. Vi was a good woman and she deserved better. Sometimes you just have to love yourself more and even though when Dee was straight she was an amazing person, she wasn't in a place to beat the demons that controlled her. 

That was thirty years ago, and I think about that man from time to time. I won't ever know if he got that breakfast, job, or new life, but what I do know is that Dee finally got out of the hotel and after a stint in jail she cleaned up her act. 

I came across Dee on social media a few years ago as a friend of a friend. I couldn't believe my eyes. She had gone to college, got a business degree, was operating a small business, and was engaged to a nice woman. 

I messaged her and after a few months of online chatting we arranged an in person visit to catch up. She did remember that night and although she says nothing I said or did that evening caused her to get clean, I wonder if there was not some type of divine intervention. ​

I gained a new perception that night of homelessness and addicts. I have never forgotten the man trying to expel his pain by giving me back what he had stolen. Or the look in his eyes after I hugged him and he believed I truly cared. Maybe God sent me there for him and not Dee. From that night forward I have tried to let people know I care, and I have shared this story with others to let them know that they could make a difference in someone's life, just by having a little empathy. If nothing else, I know for that night, one man believed in humanity again.