The other day, I went into Manhattan for a meeting at St. Francis
Church on 31st Street; afterwards I decided to take a stroll around
midtown. It was a beautiful summer day; the temperature was just right
and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I strolled up 6th Avenue through
Herald Square, along 34th Street and past Macy’s Department Store, down
7th Avenue and into Penn Station, then alongside Madison Square Garden
on 33rd Street, and then over to 8th Avenue and onto the grand steps of
the central Post Office. Getting into the opportunity to relax and take
in the sights, I went to a store and bought myself an ice cream and an
iced coffee and then I found a nice shaded bench where I sat in the
public plaza adjacent to 1 Penn Plaza. The public plaza, located just to
the south of 34th Street, was bustling with activity–people rushing
here and there, tourists taking photos, and many others just sitting on
the benches and enjoying the day like me; I love to watch people, and
the ice cream and coffee were pretty good too!
After a short time
sitting in that spot, I noticed a very unusual middle-aged woman who had
walked onto the plaza. When I saw her, she was standing about
twenty-five feet away from where I was. By all appearances, the woman
was most likely quite mentally ill and perhaps homeless as well. She
wore a completely ripped apart down jacket that was in fact missing the
entire left arm sleeve. Her ragged clothes barely hung onto her tortured
frame; in fact, her unbelted and loose fitting pants were falling off
of her waist and her private parts were clearly visible. She didn't seem
the least bit concerned about her disheveled, immodest, and sad
appearance. She stood for a while and looking up to the windows of the
office buildings above, started to scream inaudible words that seemed to
cry out in anger and pain. Eventually she tugged at the waistline of
her pants and pulled them up restoring a very small amount of dignity to
her appearance. After a short while, she sat down on a bench-like stone
wall and then she began to rummage through a canvas bag that she had
been carrying. She proceeded to pull out what looked like crushed paper
cups and a collection of colorful plastic straws. Then she stood up and
proceeded to walk back and forth to a nearby trash can, each time
violently pitching the cups and straws into it. As she threw the objects
into the trash, she yelled at each of them–as if casting them
individually into the fires of hell. After finishing with the cups and
straws, she began to dig deep into the same trash can. Eventually she
pulled a McDonald’s bag out of the trash can and started to rummage
through it, retrieving a container half-filled with French fries and a
paper cup with some remains of a beverage. She sat down again on the
bench and methodically ate each fry and then finished the meal by
drinking whatever was left in the cup. In what seemed like a great irony
to me, a man sat on another nearby bench, perhaps not more than fifteen
feet away from her, and he proceeded to empty what seemed to be an
entire shopping bag of bread crumbs onto the pavement in order to feed
hundreds of pigeons who came scrambling to enjoy his generosity. The
woman seemed oblivious to the man and the pigeons he was feeding. Not
long after she finished consuming her McDonald’s meal, the woman
reclined on the stone bench on which she had been sitting. A swarm of
flies immediately attacked her and she proceeded to swat at them, even
hitting herself in the face as she cried out in a loud voice, "get off
of me." After a short while, and what seemed to be an unsuccessful
battle with the flies, the woman appeared to fall asleep. She rested
there for a long while, even as the sun beat down upon her and as the
flies defiantly continued to assault her face.
I took out my
camera and at the same time debated with myself about whether or not
snapping her photo, even from my distance, would be an invasion of her
privacy. Very careful not to capture the image of her face, and very
discreetly, I took two photos. I had hoped to capture the moment so that
I would never forget that poor woman and her plight. I also thought
that if I could share my experience that day with others, even through
the photos, that somehow I could help to bring attention to what is no
doubt a problem for that woman and for millions of other very humble
people who share this earth with the rest of the human community.
The
sight of that poor woman, and the burdens that she so obviously
carried, moved me to a sense of great pity, but I did nothing for her
just then and probably couldn’t have even if such had been my desire at
that moment. I found myself choking back tears as I watched the woman
and as I contemplated her situation, but I felt completely powerless to
do anything that could help her. I wondered to myself what kind of life
she had lived up to that point; I wondered what her name was; I wondered
about the daily struggles she must have had; I wondered if anyone had
ever attacked or raped her, or if she had been abused in some other
sinister way; I wondered if she had committed some egregious acts or
crimes in her life that had destined her to be an outcast; I wondered if
she had been a happy child and if she had good memories from her past; I
wondered if somewhere there was an old photograph of her from her youth
in which she wore a beautiful dress and could be seen smiling broadly; I
wondered who might still be holding that photo; I wondered if she still
had family or other people in her life who loved her and worried about
her and hoped that she would come home someday; I wondered if she had
any friends at all and what kind of joy, if any, they might bring into
her life; I wondered if anyone at all could do anything to help her; I
wondered if what I saw that day would typify the manner in which she
would live her life until the very end. As I contemplated all of these
questions, I felt very sad, even hopeless.
Suddenly, darkness entered what had been a cloudless and beautiful day.
All
that I can do now is to pray for that woman, and for other people who
have similar difficulties and problems. May God help them and may they
be given the strength and guidance they might need in order to overcome
the sufferings of this life.
To the very unusual middle-aged woman
who had walked onto the plaza that day: whatever your name might be,
may peace and all that is good be yours someday soon.
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