I had my mind made up about Modesto’s homeless population. One man changed it | Opinion

“I know all I ever want to know about the ‘homeless.’” That was my thought as I arrived at Safeway at 4:30 each morning.

Always, there are people on the sidewalk. Not customers anxiously waiting for our opening at 5:00 a.m. to grab cereal and milk for breakfast. No, these are street people. I recognize the regulars. Routinely, there are others — some ominous looking, but most appearing harmless. Wrapped in a blanket or sleeping bag, and surrounded by refuse of their own making. Dazed? Asleep?

Watching closely as I approach, my welcoming committee.

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Who are these people? I hesitate to call them “homeless” because these transients seem aimless, unmotivated and secure in the life they have created for themselves on the street — in this case, on the sidewalk that I must clean and make welcoming for our customers.

Garbage, left-over food, spilled drinks and, yes, urine. I sweep. I remove what can be removed. And then I mop with disinfectant.

“Yes, I know these people,” I thought. “I know all I ever want to know.”

Our Starbucks concession regularly offers street people a cup of hot water for their use in making soups or beverages as they warm themselves in our seating area. Recently, one of the regulars became upset about some imagined wrong and threw a full cup of scalding water in the face of the first staff member he saw. This happened to be our totally accommodating, gracious, knowledgeable and kind front-end manager.

Shocked, but not surprised, I thought, “Yes, I know these people.”

I routinely check our restrooms. Early one morning, I knocked on the men’s room door. A man’s voice shouted, “I’m busy in here. Leave me alone.” I answered that I needed to do a routine check, and I would wait until he was finished. This was repeated several times. When he finally came out, carrying his bedroll and bags, he smiled and said to me, “I left something in there for you, sweetie.”

It was his underwear full of excrement.

“Yep,” I thought, “I know these people. I know all I ever need to know.”

During one of the first storms of our very wet winter last year, I put on Safeway rain gear to go out and gather carts. The rain gear is sized to fit someone 6’2” and 300 pounds. Not my size, for sure. The hood kept falling over my face. I couldn’t see, I was hobbled by the bulk of the gear, and when I tried to reposition the hood, I got drenched.

As I struggled, I caught sight of a man in the parking lot.

What was he doing? Gathering carts?

Approaching him, I recognized him as the man who had been huddled against the front wall of the store to get out of the rain. As I neared him, I said, “This is my job. You don’t need to do this. You’ll be soaked.”

He smiled at me. Really smiled. And said, “I was sitting over there on my ass doing nothing. I saw you out here and I thought, ‘I could do that. I could help.’”

Having said that, he returned to the task he had set for himself: gathering carts in a downpour to help a struggling little person he did not know at all.

I remembered a $20 bill lying on the front passenger seat of my car. My friend Claire tossed it there when I did her a favor. Walking over to my car, I retrieved that $20 and held it out to him.

“Oh no,” he said, “I didn’t do this to get paid. I just did it because I wanted to help.”

There I stood, in the Safeway parking lot, in a downpour, blindsided by grace. Realizing, for the first time, that I knew nothing about “these people.”

There really is no “us” and no “them.” It’s easy to draw those lines, but it’s more complicated than that. Most things are.

Looking at him I said, “You know, 2,000 years ago there was a man who said, ‘When you do your good works, do them in secret without expectation of reward.’ You’ve done that. Now you have to let me do my part.”

He smiled and took the bill.

Who was he? I don’t know. Where is he now? I have no idea.

But I know I will always remember the man who just wanted to help and, in the process, opened my eyes to grace in the middle of a downpour.

Bunny Stevens lives in Modesto, her hometown, and has served on The Modesto Bee Community Advisory Board. She is the opening courtesy clerk at the Safeway supermarket on McHenry Avenue and an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church. She has also been known to represent the Easter Bunny and Santa’s Elf for children of all ages. Reach her at BunnyinModesto@gmail.com