"You may park in your regular stall, but just to let you know, the homeless man who sleeps in our lot passed away."
If the caffeine had not kicked in at that point, her bit of news woke me up.
Homeless dude. An unnamed fellow who decided a few months ago that our parking lot was a great place to camp out each night. I only ran across him once or twice as he was very good about clearing out when the first employee drove in before dawn. Sometimes, he would oversleep, but when car headlights woke him up, he would silently pack whatever belongings he had and move along.
By the time I parked my car, the firefighters and paramedics had arrived. I often wonder why firefighters get dressed up in full gear to respond to ambulance calls. They spent maybe 10 minutes at the most on the scene, then left the paramedics to do their work. I found it interesting that the paramedics hooked up a heart monitor and took a blood pressure reading from an obviously dead man. I mean, the full-rigor status was convincing enough for me, but I guess protocols must be observed. A couple of hours later, the coroner arrived to officially pronouned the man dead. Another hour or so passed before the morgue van came to whisk the man off to his final destination.
I am often nonchalant about the homeless people who wander the neighborhood where I work. In the past few years their numbers increased dramatically when the city closed Ala Moana Park at night to discourage homeless camps. I admit becoming highly annoyed when the Waikiki Health Center opened shop two doors down from our office and their homeless clientele used our parking lot as a toilet. (The center left the area after a few months.) But looking at the lifeless body of one of these forgotten souls made me realize homeless people are human just like the rest of us.
At one time, this man lying dead in our parking lot was someone's baby. He may have been someone's brother or uncle or even husband and father. One of my co-workers said she had heard he was employed. Another said that she would say "Hi!" to him when she had to come to the office after hours.
It is sad that this man died alone in our parking lot. No one was there to hold his hand as he took his last breath. No one shed tears when the last essence of life left his body. I'm sure this scenerio plays out all across our city every day. The remains of unattended deaths probably fill the city morgue. But getting an up close look at such a tragedy makes you wonder: What happened to this man that brought him to this place and his ultimate demise? And how many more like him are on a similar path? There are no easy solutions and no quick answers.
