One Day Sarah

I met Sarah when she came into the Eat-Drink just after the lunch hour rush. A blond wearing sweatshirt and jeans isn’t anything special, though she was carrying a shiny vinyl purse. It was tube shaped and a bright teal green. She asked me to bring her whatever I thought was the best lunch we had to offer. When I brought her a grilled chicken salad, she took out a small black notebook to cross something out.

She managed to make her salad last nearly two hours. She claimed it was the best she ever had, but I was skeptical. When I brought out her bill, she paid with a crisp twenty. I asked what brought her to our little neighborhood diner. She said she had been to the city many times but never been to this side of downtown. I suggested she head back downtown as our neighborhood is sometimes not so friendly to strangers.

Sarah then introduced herself and asked when I got off work. I said I didn’t really get off work, I simply moved from this job to the next. She smiled kindly and asked about the next job. I shared that I helped prepare beds and make dinner at a homeless shelter. She asked if she could help; she had nowhere else she needed to be. I readily agreed to extra help and let her know she could call me Bobby.

At the shelter she was a big help and wasn’t afraid to ask questions whether it was doing laundry, making beds, or helping in the kitchen. When they opened the doors for dinner, she acted as hostess greeting each arrival.

Her “Hello! Good afternoon! Good to see you! Come in! Come in!” had our regulars believing she was a regular volunteer from the neighborhood. When the flow slowed down, Sarah went from table to table checking on everyone. She bowed her head in prayer with some. With others, she laughed. A few she brought to the attention of a volunteer nurse that had joined us that afternoon.

After dinner Sarah opted to join me at the Vet Hall where I had volunteered to call Bingo numbers. Again, assuming the role of hostess, she floated from person to person. The old vets can be pretty persnickety, especially to strangers, but Sarah somehow knew who to look in the eye or touch on the shoulder and who needed their personal space. I used to pat myself on the back just for volunteering to call the numbers, but that night I witnessed a truly giving person.

We stayed at the Vet Hall until closing. I think Sarah personally wished every customer and staff member good night. As the two of us walked outside, I hailed a waiting cab to take Sarah to her hotel. She just waved the driver on, saying she wasn’t ready to leave and suggested we go have coffee.

There really isn’t a place you can go for coffee that late, so I invited her to my apartment. Fortunately, I keep my kitchen clean and since I have little more than a couch and bookshelves for furniture, it never gets too messy. My bed wasn’t made, and I may have left dirty clothes laying around the bedroom, but that stayed behind a closed door.

I made coffee and shared a box of cookies my mom had insisted I keep in my freezer. (THANKS MOM! You were right about being prepared for company!)

We spent the night talking about the people Sarah had met. I volunteered every day, but I never felt comfortable talking to the people there. That night I learned about the wide range of people using the shelter. Here I had been feeling good about giving people a meal and a safe place to sleep while what they were really hungry for was a way out: educated men and women without the means to look presentable for a job interview; willing workers without transportation; inexperienced youth who were never taught basic living skills such as cooking, cleaning, or using a budget.

Sarah told me a story about a young man who was awarded a college scholarship and given a car as a graduation gift. The man had a college degree, but owed student loans for food and housing. He had no clue of how to take care of a car; his ended up dying and being impounded. He had a job as a stocker but didn’t make enough to afford a place to stay. He said his family couldn’t help him. She was sure all what he really needed was practice in social skills and perhaps a mentor to show him how to build a portfolio and confidence.

I asked her about the military vets and was surprised to learn, she hadn’t heard many complaints or any pleas for help. They were there for a good time. They shared stories of their youth—mostly about their strength, skills, and good looks. Many of them bragged about kids or grandkids. Some just shared jokes. Her summary of the experience was “Who wants to think about what needs fixing in life when you’re having fun playing bingo!”

Despite all her talking, I never actually learned anything about where Sarah came from or what she was doing. Maybe I would have gotten around to asking if I hadn’t dozed off when she went to use the bathroom. The next morning, I woke up alone on the couch. Her shiny teal purse was on the coffee table along with a note written on a page torn from her small black notebook. It said simply, “Thank you. That was the best day of my life.”

I called her name and ran around the apartment thinking she wouldn’t have left her purse, but she was gone. I opened the purse to look for some identification or a way to contact her. It was jammed packed with crisp twenty-dollar bills.

Dumping out the bills, I scoured the purse for clues. The only pocket was a zipper pocket inside and it only contained the DO NOT EAT silica packet. There was a ‘Made in Taiwan’ tag, but that was no help.

Every bill was crisp and clean; like new. Where was this money from? Did Sarah steal it?

I didn’t know what to think. I counted the bills and found there were exactly one thousand crisp twenty-dollar bills in the bag. $20,000! Maybe she did rob a bank or something, but she gave up the money so maybe she wanted to repent. Maybe that was why she came to our rundown neighborhood.

I stowed the purse under my bed and tried not to think about it. I emptied it and searched it many more times over the weeks that followed. I even took out a few bills one night when I came home with an empty wallet, but I got up hours later to return the bills to the purse. It just felt wrong. The money wasn’t mine.

The weeks that followed I was constantly asking if anyone had seen Sarah. I even tried to have a sketch made of her, but it didn’t really look like her. You’d think with all the people she met, someone would have taken a selfie with her, but no, not one. I didn’t mention the money to anyone. At first, I was concerned about getting her in trouble and then it kind of grew into my own dirty little secret—how could I bring it up after not mentioning it for so long.

The beat cop that eats at the diner said he’d keep an eye out for anyone matching Sarah’s description. Then he suggested she could have been an actress researching a role.

Finally, an idea that made sense to me! I started reading the Entertainment section of the Trib front to back; looking up anyone named Sarah on my smartphone. There are a lot of performance artists that go by Sarah and a lot of variety in the spellings—with an H, without an H, with an I, with two Rs, with an E, ending with a J.

Just over two months later, another stranger came into the diner—a tall man in a fancy gray suit with a chiseled jaw and bright blue eyes. He walked in and stood in the center of the diner. I approached him with a menu. He asked if I was Bobby.

I nodded.

“Do you recognize this woman?” He held up a photo of Sarah that looked like a glamour shot. She was wearing a gorgeous silky red outfit. Her hair was big waves of platinum blond. Her face was golden.

“That’s Sarah!” I exclaimed. My heart leapt in excitement then dropped in worry.

The man explained the woman I met was his wife. She had recently died from some rare genetic disorder. Her name was not Sarah—though to me she will always be Sarah. Then he handed me a small black notebook.

It was his wife’s bucket list. I looked through the list and found several things we had done that day she visited this neighborhood.

• Spend a day without staff or even a driver.
• Wear jeans.
• Buy something I would normally never buy.

I am guessing that was the shiny teal tube purse she abandoned at my apartment.

• Eat in a diner.
• Let someone else choose a meal for me.
• Meet the average Joe.

She crossed out Joe and replaced it with Bobby. This made me smile.

• Learn how to do laundry.
• Learn how to cook.
• Make my own coffee.

I showed her how to make coffee at the shelter, but I’m not sure she actually drank any of it.

• Meet a homeless person.
• Pray aloud, really pray, from the heart.
• Talk with a veteran.
• Play Bingo.
• Spend the night with a man I just met.

Note she did not say have a one-nighter; we only talked. There were lots of other items on her list, but those are the ones this neighborhood helped her cross off.

The last few pages of her book are full of blessings. God bless my parents, my spouse, my pastor, this person who showed me this or that, and on and on. The last entry was how Sarah’s husband found me. It simply said, “God bless Bobby at the EAT-DRINK and his fine neighborhood.”

The day after I met Sarah’s husband, I started making my own list. This list was of all we would need to help feed the real hunger in this neighborhood—the hunger to be out of poverty, to be able to support one’s self and family.

It included short term housing and food of course, but it also included:

• Life skills training
• Financial literacy training
• Personal wellness training
• Job placement and networking
• Resources for finding affordable housing
• Childcare
• Affordable transportation
• Community partnerships

After I had a good list, I pulled out Sarah’s shiny teal bag of twenties and brought it to the shelter. There I found a team of experienced social workers and dedicated volunteers to help me use the $20,000 to bring Sarah’s kindness and joyful spirit back into our neighborhood.

Today we open the doors of Sarah’s House—a community where the homeless can find a path out of poverty.