One of the reasons that I became interested in the plight of the homeless was from learning about my soon to be father-in-law. He is homeless, was homeless, may still be homeless. When we were dating, my now husband was embarrassed to tell me about his father. It wasn’t something he talked about. Mark has graciously agreed to tell his story.
My father’s name is Jack Allen Wait. My mom told me his mother called him a “menopause baby”, born late in his mother’s life. He was at least 7 or 8 years younger than the two older children. A brother and sister. Jack was born in Sioux Falls, SD. My mother told me that he was constantly seeking his mother’s approval. Could never do anything, in his mind, to get her approval. She was always putting him down, never as good as his siblings. He got a GED, dropped out of high school. He was doing apprentice for a newspaper printing company when he got drafted at 19 or 20, approximately 1963, 1964. He met my mother in Oklahoma, at basic training. Did one tour in Vietnam, about 18 months. He never talked about it. Jack was married until I was 21, 22 or 23 years old. He was getting into legal trouble, jail, due to alcoholism, drunk driving. He drank pretty much the entire marriage, except 1980 to 1984. My mother left and moved out with my youngest sister, the next youngest sister stayed with Jack. My oldest sister and I were in college. My mother returned 2 years later then kicked him out. They then divorced. He began to emotionally loose it at that time. At that point he basically was moving around place to place, living off the divorce settlement and his inheritance from his father’s passing.
I asked Mark, when did you find out he was homeless?
I was living in Melbourne. He came to see me and stayed in Florida for about a month. Then about 1998, I got a call from a payphone. My dad said he was in Florida, wanted me to come pick him up. He said he was hitchhiking through the area with a buddy and needed a place to stay for the night. He was there for about a day. They stayed in the garage because the other fellow was a reprobate. A month later he called from Louisiana, said he wanted to get off the road. The guy he was with had beat him up and stole his money, several thousand dollars from gambling. He called, asked me to come get him. I told him no. I sent him a bus ticket to come to Florida to live with me. He started living with me from about January 1999. Cleaned, up, sobered up. Got a job. He was able to save up money to buy a car. Got a better job, offered job at FIT. He then at that point snapped, did not take the job. He was not going to work. Started coming home drunk. Around Memorial Day, 1999. I then told him he had to leave. I had small children. He was a pity drunk. He would get very depressed and whine. I’m a horrible person, etc. Felt sorry for himself. He had some money. He hung around town for months, maybe a year, Aug 2000. He would go through stages. Clean up, get a job, then binge drink 3 days at a time. He would spend every cent. He would have houses, roommates periodically. Found out he was living in the woods at various times during the couple of years. In the winter he would live in with people. In the summer he lived in the woods. He would clean up and visit periodically. He was supposed to come over Thanksgiving 2003 and a week before that I got a police car show up in my driveway wanting to look at my cars. They said there was a report of a car licensed to Jack Wait that was involved in a hit run. Jack had hit a gas pump while drunk and then ran. Ditched the car. Never came for Thanksgiving. He came by after Christmas. Came to the door one day, said he had liver cancer, had to go to VA in Tampa to get checked out. I don’t know if it was true or not. Called a few months later and said everything was fine. He came by a few times later. I have not seen him since 2003. Called in 2005, said that he was sober, living in a half way house in Las Vegas, working with homeless vets there. He was sharing a cell number and an address. I called the number and wrote letters to that address in 2008. Nobody answered, number was disconnected. No mail reply. I have not heard from him since then. My older sister took him in periodically, early 1990s.
If he called you today what would you say?
How are you? Things are different in my life. I would tell him about his grandchildren.
If he needed help?
I would not let him live with me. I don’t need another child. That’s basically what he was.
Would you help him monetarily?
I don’t know, probably not. If he was hitchhiking I know it would go to alcohol again. If something happened to him I don’t know if anyone would know how to contact his family.
How does his situation alter your view of other homeless?
Makes me very leery because I saw all the tricks. To me homeless are there because of the choices they make in life and the consequences of their choices. There are so many avenues to go about things. He chose his lifestyle. He wanted no responsibility. He had the whole VA system at his disposal, friends, family. If he had stayed off the alcohol he could have gotten back into society. He wanted to be off the grid.
Do you think it was because of his upbringing?
His self esteem was very lacking. He was told emotions were a weakness. He was told if he felt emotions as a man you are weak. It would be nice to know that he’s doing alright. It’s weird to have a relative that you don’t know if he’s alive or dead. He’s almost 70 years old. It’s odd. I don’t really think about him much. It’s easier to put him off. The only time I think of him is when I see the pictures of him. If I hear something scraping on cement I think of him because when I was 6 until I was 10,11 we were going to build a house and we started building a basement with a tar roof. When it would rain, it would leak. I would wake up in the middle of the night and there would be water on the floor and we would scrape the water up with dust pans into a trash can and hear, scrape, splash, scrape, splash. When we finished he took us to a bar about 30 miles away and he would buy us soda and pizza and we would eat that while he drank. That was kinda the only time I spent with him, sitting in a smoke-filled bar.
In a sad, small way, Mark is lucky. He knew his father. I never knew mine. Another story for another day. So, you see, the homeless are people, hurting people. They are lost children of God, the one sheep that is lost while the other 99 are safe in their field. What do they need? Depends. They are individuals, unique in their own way. The only way to know what they need is to get to know them and find out. Each story I have told was different. Each person became homeless in a different way. The one similar thread, choice. Each person made a choice, a poor choice, which lead to another poor choice. Then, somehow, they lost their way and for whatever reason chose the woods. God gave us free will, the ability to make choices. However, the good news is The Shepherd is still looking for the lost sheep and each of these people have the ability to choose to re- you choose the word: repent, reconnect, reconcile, recover, reclaim, recover, reform, rectify their life.
