She cared about me when I had nothing
I sat in my truck shivering from the cold, I had no money and no gas. The shelter threw us out at 6:00 A.M. I took out my phone and connected to a WIFI hotspot. I logged onto Facebook where Olivia was waiting for me.
“ Are you okay?” she asked. I told her I fine, just tired. “ I was worried about you.” She texted back. I thanked her, we talked for a few minutes, then I went back to sleep.
We kept texting each other, And those texts kept me from going insane. My family didn’t seem to care, but a stranger, a woman I hadn’t met in person cared enough to text me every day.
After several days of sleeping in my truck, I asked a guy sitting next to me waiting for dinner. “ Where do people go when they throw us out in the morning?
He turned and looked at me. “ Some of us wander the skyway, some of us go to Mary Jo’s, and some of us go to the library.”
I didn’t know what the skyway was, and I didn’t know anything about Mary Jo’s, but my ears perked up when he said library. I asked him where it was, he gave me directions.
The next morning, I napped in my truck until close to nine o’clock, then I stepped out for my first real look at downtown Minneapolis.
I found the library easy enough. The first thing I noticed, was all the homeless people I had seen at the shelter at almost all the computers. I sat down at one, but I didn’t have a password, so I went to a staff member. I signed up for a library card and was given instructions for logging on.
I sat down in front of the first un-used PC, I checked my email, then I went to Facebook. Olivia was waiting for me. I spent most of the day talking to her. We talked until I had to give it up, because the computer was reserved.
I sat in a chair, reading magazines and trying to stay awake. The security guards at the library were very aggressive. I hung out until late that afternoon, then I went back to the shelter for dinner, and my first full night.
