Homeless

There was a time when I couldn't walk downtown Northampton or Greenfield without the chance of running into my aunt or uncle.

My homeless, usually buzzed or drunk, aunt and uncle.

My entire life they drifted around the area, never going further than Connecticut, and always coming back to Western Massachusetts. Sometimes they lived together, trying to get by, other times they led completely separate lives.

Both of them, alcoholics. Both of them, wandering through life with no real purpose.

Once in a while, they would come around my grandparents' house, seemingly having put their lives in order, at least to an extent. The facade, the normalcy, would only exist for a short time before the demons caught up and took over once again. In and out of jail, substance abuse programs, rehab, you name it. One moment they seemed to want to take charge of their lives, the next moment they were stealing money and breaking our family's hearts in the process.

I remember one summer evening after work, I was walking to a restaurant in downtown Hamp with a friend. Suddenly, my rail-thin aunt was stumbling down the sidewalk toward me. "Krisss?" she slurred as she enveloped me in a huge, tight hug. I hugged her back, tentatively. I hadn't seen her in 3 years. She somehow didn't look worse for the wear, although I knew she had really only been existing on a liquid diet. She stepped back and took me in with her huge, blue eyes. "You look so much like your mom, my sister. I miss her so much. Are you doing okay?" I was surprised at how coherent she was in that moment, and how much I could see my mom in her. I told her I was doing okay, and then she started giving me her usual lines about how she'd love to get her life on track, but x, y and z was preventing it, and did I know she had a new boyfriend? Although his drinking problem was worse than hers, and he has seizures all the time.

We parted ways and I walked on with my friend, shaken. Over the years, I had to distance myself emotionally from both her and my uncle because they were unreliable and I saw the hurt they caused the rest of the family. Running into them, in the scenario I described above, was unsettling. This was not how normal families were. One black sheep? OK. Two? Sometimes in the same city that I frequented for shopping and eating? It was too much. I could never walk downtown freely without the worry of running into them, and I would feel guilty of my own life when I saw them. Guilty because I had a full-time job, a husband, and a roof over my head. Things one should not have to feel guilty about, but yet, I did, because it felt uncomfortable to be doing better than my older aunt and uncle. It felt uncomfortable that they had been dealt monumental struggles and I had not.

Sadly, both of them met tragic ends. The drinking took over, as we all thought it might, and they both died from it. They could not be saved, and if I told you all the effort that had been put in over the years to try to save them, you would be exhausted.

And you would understand.

Homeless people with substance abuse problems do have families. Families that care very, very much, but who can only do so much before they start hurting their own lives in the process.We loved them, but that was not enough to save them.