Twelfth Night

If music be the food of love, play on!

Thus goes the opening line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Tonight actually is twelfth night and after taking down the decorations, dismantling the tree and putting away all the other Christmas paraphernalia, I served up an enormous roast chicken with all the trimmings for my eager family, some of whom were actually banging on the table, Henry VIII style with their spoons (One, as of course you guessed. Husband has better manners and merely shouts where is my supper). I fed them until their bellies were round and bulging and they were positively humming with satisfaction.  During the meal Husband declared that the pouring of a good glass of claret was a symphony to his ears, thus proving that the Bard made a mistake – clearly food is the music of love, not the other way around.

In the midst of our merriment and satiety, I was reminded of a man I encountered yesterday. Our lives touched only briefly but I have found it difficult to get him out of my head.

He stood by the off ramp, anxiously, politely holding a small sign.

HUNGRY TIMOTHY

was all it said.

It immediately caught my attention. The minimalism of it.
I have seen a lot of signs held up by the needy and indigent, as have you, and they range from the usual “homeless and hungry, please help” to “broke and trying to get to –“ or even occasionally the amusing and honest “need money for beer”. 

But this was different.  It was compelling in its use of his full first name – not a diminutive like Tim or Timmy, but the more dignified Timothy, and it just said what he was.

Hungry.

It was the Haiku of help-me signs.

He carried about himself a certain poise. Humble, but not humiliated. In need, but not needy.

He must  have been about my age, or perhaps a bit younger but weather beaten. His beard was neatly clipped and his clothes were tidy, if worn.  There was a sense of quiet desperation about him that I could sense from five cars away, though he was perfectly still and stood up straight with his shoulders back. I watched him look at the stopped traffic with pale, blue, unfathomable eyes. How many would look away? Many of us did.

If we make eye contact we are forced to admit that Hungry Timothy is a human being, and acknowledge him. And then we will have to give.  Because how can we not give to someone who is hungry when we are not? Most people are actually pretty generous, so it’s not usually giving that is a problem, it’s often some kind of harboured resentment towards those down on their luck.

I really don’t believe that people get there because they don’t want to work or because they’re lazy. I think it’s much harder to stand around begging for money than working for it. It’s actually like having a job selling your own pride to the world’s worst, most abusive boss and there are hundreds of them and no supervisor to go to when you get shat on.

So why do we feel such aversion?

Do we feel ashamed of our good fortune?

Or that they deserve it?

I am not sure. It’s a hard one to answer.

My father always hands out money to the homeless. He always has, as long as I can remember, even though he is not someone who generally gives to charity. I once asked him when I was a very young woman why he did it, did he really think it helped those people? He said that he didn’t know in the long term, but it assisted them in the moment when they felt most in need. And it also helped him.  I asked what he meant by that and he answered

“There but for the grace of God go I” 

He explained that he felt there was just a thin skein of good fortune that separated him, in his late model car, high flying job and many-roomed home from these guys sucking a bottle of Thunderbird on the street corner and it really wasn’t so very far to fall from grace. And perhaps on that terrible day that a person finds themselves at the bottom without a dime, someone may hand them a dollar and wish them luck.

He didn’t exactly spell it out, but I got the feeling that this was the closest that my very practical, atheist father is going to get to admitting to paying into a divine karmic insurance policy. Oh well, it’s all good – made perfect sense to me.

I dug a dollar out of my purse and I handed it to Hungry Timothy as I drove around the corner, wishing him all the best. He thanked me with simple dignity and our fingers brushed.

I looked for him later when I came to that intersection again, but he had moved on. I hope that he found some money, some food, some shelter, and that at least today he is not Hungry Timothy but perhaps Full Timothy.

And in the future I wish for him to be Warm Timothy, Employed Timothy, Laughing Timothy, Unafraid Timothy, Joyous Timothy. I wish for him not to have to hold a sign that defines him in the eyes of others just in order to survive from one day to the next.

I wish for him to be just Timothy. 

I wish things to be just for Timothy.