Homeless and Living in a Tent

Sorry I haven’t posted in a while. I have been “gravely ill”! I mean worst week and a half of my LIFE! My primary care Dr. misdiagnosed me saying that my complaint of my lungs was basically nothing. Fast forward a few days, land in the ER, dropped 8 pounds (PS I don’t have 8 pounds to spare), fever of 102.4, oh… and the ER took a chest X-Ray and let me know that I had a severe case of pneumonia and that people that have had pneumonia this severe have died but I am young so I should pull through. (Talk about a comforting chat!) They pumped me full of antibiotics and here I am, back in the swing of things. I am not 100% but I am getting there.

Any-who! This morning on my way in, it was freezing. 10 degrees with a wind chill of I don’t know…but it was COLD!!

There were signal problems. Big surprise! Lately there have been signal problems on a daily basis. We have to go slow because of these signal problems and since I am still kind of sick, I decided to rest and look out the window instead of read. As we were slowly going under a bridge, I see a tent with a little grill next to it. I am immediately saddened. This was someone homeless. This wasn’t someone camping in the middle of Medford. It was freezing cold outside and the only thing this person had protecting them was a thin tent of nylon.

I will never forget the first time I saw a homeless tent. Let’s just say I grew up sheltered and/or privileged. I was driving through Concord, NH with a friend when I was about 20 and from the highway I saw a bunch of tents set up near the river but the river was right down town. I blurted out “Who the hell camps in down town Concord. That’s not camping!” He abruptly pulled off the highway and brought me over to the “camp site”. He then explained to me that they weren’t camping, that was where they lived. It hit me like a ton of bricks and I haven’t seen anything like it since, until today.

I felt so bad for that person hiding under a bridge in a tent only a few feet from the train tracks in 10 degree weather. How scary is that? How saddening is that? It really made me think of how lucky I am! I have a roof over my head. I have heat. Yes, I can hear the train from my house but it isn’t on top of me. It just puts things into perspective for me and I have said it before and I will say it again, No matter how bad you have it, someone else has it worse.