Nobody Gets the Certificate – Everybody Just Gets Today
Dispatches are allowed to be messy because life is messy.
A storm rolled through Kelowna this afternoon.
Rain.
Ice pellets.
Wind.
The kind of weather that sends people looking for cover wherever they can find it.
I shot weather footage near Richter Street and Gaston Avenue and sent it to a newsroom before my phone battery became the next problem to solve.
For a few minutes, the storm seemed like the story.
It wasn’t.
The story had started hours earlier.
Before the rain.
Before the wind.
A man I’ll call Daniel learned that a friend had died in jail.
The news hit him hard.
He cried.
I cried too.
Not because I knew the man who died.
Because grief is contagious when you’re close enough to watch it land on somebody.
For a few minutes, all the noise disappeared.
There was just a human being trying to make sense of loss.
Later, Daniel offered me access to his bed space.
The reason was practical.
The outlet near his area could help keep my diabetes-management devices charged.
Anyone who has spent time in a shelter understands that people establish routines. They find places where they feel comfortable. They create small islands of stability.
Offering that space wasn’t nothing.
Daniel also told me I was legit.
Those words meant more than he probably realized.
The day continued.
A woman I’ll call Maya spent part of it battling her own addiction.
I watched her smoke from her pipe.
Later, I watched her clean.
Sweeping.
Tidying.
Looking after the shelter.
I asked her why.
“Well, I live here.”
That was the entire answer.
No speech.
No performance.
Just a simple statement of ownership and responsibility.
There was also Ethan.
Day four.
Coming off meth and weed.
Shaking.
Sick.
Exhausted.
Sweating.
Nauseated.
Shitting himself.
Trying to pursue a different path.
I bought him a Gatorade.
I bought him a banana.
Staff became involved.
Nurses became involved.
A doctor became involved.
People were paying attention.
People were trying to help.
One of the things I keep noticing here is that care often exists where outsiders least expect to find it.
A nurse taking time to listen.
A harm reduction worker talking science with me.
A doctor seeing someone where they are instead of where paperwork says they should be.
A veterinarian looking at a dog’s injured paw for free because the owner was worried.
A worried dog owner.
A woman cleaning.
People trying.
Then there was Sam.
The gardener.
Every day he waters the garden.
Every day he pulls weeds.
Every day he looks after flowers and plants.
The garden becomes easy to miss because it is always there.
But that’s exactly the point.
The garden doesn’t make headlines.
The person carrying the hose doesn’t make headlines.
Yet every day something gets watered.
Something gets maintained.
Something gets kept alive.
That matters.
By the time the weather finally arrived, I had already spent most of the day noticing people quietly caring for things.
People caring for gardens.
People caring for dogs.
People caring for strangers.
People caring for each other.
Even when they don’t have much left for themselves.
The rain simply made those things easier to see.
Later, in an alley during the rain and ice pellets, I met three women huddled together.
We talked for a few minutes.
They were friendly.
Funny.
Tired.
Human.
Not symbols.
Not stereotypes.
Just people trying to get through another day.
I also met a young man who was dopesick.
A different person from Ethan.
He was worried about shelters and conflicts with other people.
We talked for a while.
I gave him a couple of smokes.
At one point I told him it had taken me seven years to get clean.
Not because our stories were identical.
Because sometimes encouragement is all you have to offer.
Sometimes that’s enough to get somebody through another hour.
Later I ended up at McDonald’s on Bernard Avenue.
I ate half a Double Quarter Pounder meal standing near the condiment station because seating was scarce.
While I was there, a staff member told me the outlets had been disabled because homeless people had been using them to charge devices.
That statement came from a staff member.
I’m simply reporting what I was told.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
The city talks about homelessness.
The public debates homelessness.
People argue about homelessness.
And all day I’d been spending time with actual human beings.
Daniel.
Maya.
Ethan.
Sam.
The worried dog owner.
The three women in the alley.
The young man trying not to give up.
The nurses.
The doctor.
The veterinarian.
The harm reduction worker.
All of them trying to make it through one more day.
At some point I found myself thinking about a fictional certificate.
It reads:
Congratulations.
You’re permanently safe now.
You are hereby immune from addiction, grief, depression, loneliness, bad decisions, financial crises, relationship problems, self-doubt, and the occasional desire to tell everyone to fuck off.
Of course no such certificate exists.
Nobody gets one.
Not Daniel.
Not Maya.
Not Ethan.
Not Sam.
Not me.
Recovery doesn’t have a finish line.
Neither does grief.
Neither does healing.
The victories are usually much smaller.
I got through today.
I made a better choice.
I asked for help.
I helped someone else.
I didn’t give up.
Today was the second time I wiped tears from my eyes.
The first was when Daniel learned his friend had died.
The second came later when I realized something I hadn’t expected to feel.
I don’t want to be here very long.
But I’m going to miss this place.
And I’m going to miss these people.
Because somewhere between the grief, the addiction, the setbacks, the laughter, the dogs, the gardens, the shared smokes, the rain, the ice pellets, and the conversations, this place stopped feeling like a story.
It started feeling like a community.
Nobody gets the certificate.
Everybody just gets today.
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