It's A Good Thing/2016- early 2017

(Me and Linetta.)

I met Rick and Leonettia or Linetta as it is pronounced sitting on a patch of grass beside the side walk near the Wendy’s across the street. They lived there; sometimes with Rick’s 22 year old son they call “Bubba.” They were homeless and I never knew what that was like before. I mean I would see people on the corners asking for money with the card board signs, but to actually have a peek into their suffering world. They fought to stay on that corner, the police wanted them out, but Rick fought to stay there.

Whenever I would see the homeless on the street corners I would give them money to make myself feel better; never once thinking where they would sleep or where they would actually bathe. They don’t bathe, it took knowing someone who was homeless to know that, not with my mind but with my senses. I never even thought about where they did their laundry. These were all things we take for granted every day.

I had seen Rick and Leonettia for months had even given them money, I don’t know one day I just couldn’t pass by them anymore and pretend that they didn’t exist, because they did. They lived on the same block but in a completely different world.

Then I began to minister to Leonettia. She was born Leonettia Jo Hopkins in Torrance, California nearly 50 years ago on June 12, 1967. She weighed 3 lbs 8 ounces at birth. Because Leonettia was born to her mother Dorothy prematurely at 7 months of pregnancy, her lungs were under developed. Her mother told me as a child she had seizures until the age of 6. Because of her lungs, and the asthma she was never spanked.

Years later she met Rick Baker, and lived with him in Auberry. They both told me they used to take long walks in the countryside together. Later they traversed the concrete pavement of downtown Fresno. She used to sigh disappointed with herself. “I can’t walk with Rick anymore.” She was resigned to sitting on the small patch of grass near Wendy’s; her heart missed walking with him. Linetta couldn’t walk far anymore, her lungs were compromised and she would literally gasp for chunks of air.

Leonettia had a sweet tooth, she loved candy. She didn’t have many of her teeth, so she liked Milky Way or Three Musketeers. I don’t know why that was, and of course I don’t judge her for it. She had the best smile.

Leonettia used to say to me, “You don’t know what it’s like not to have walls and doors, not to have any privacy.” She opened my eyes to a lot of things about people who do not have homes or apartments. I hate the word “homeless” becomes it stigmatizes the people who do not have a place to lay their head. It makes them seem lazy, inferior, the word implies harshly that they deserve what happened to them. And they don’t. All of us have made mistakes, but the mistakes didn’t cost us our homes. Some of us are very blessed, and more connected to our families, while others are not as connected.

Later I found out that Leonettia had a family who loves her, but I don’t think she really knew that. I used to ask her if I could contact her family for her and tell them where she was. She wasn’t comfortable with me doing that. She said I was her best friend, aside from Rick.

Leonettia was an artist. She used to color in adult coloring books. But the colors, the way she colored was amazing it was a work of art. I used to tell her she was an artist. She was so modest.

She told me she had been smoking since she was 13. As much as I persuaded her to quit, she always said this was her last one. She and Rick would roll up their cigarettes because it was cheaper than buying cigarettes in a pack.

She had the best attitude, she rarely complained about her terrible situation. She would always say, “It’s a good thing.” She was so grateful for everything. I would tell her, “Stop thanking me.”

On the street people would drive by in their cars, maybe give Rick some money as he stood on the corner. They didn’t know what a gem Leonettia was. There were people who would stop and give them food, coats for the winter. But then they would leave. Leonettia and Rick needed a support system. She needed rides to the doctors, to get paperwork, to get the things she needed done. How often we take things for granted. She didn’t.

She had a wonderful sense of humor. She was so positive, laughed a lot she was infectious to be around. She wanted to study the bible more than I studied with her. She wanted Jesus so desperately. She already had a kind nature. I believe the Lord was already working in her. Or she would have been bitter, and angry. She wasn’t.

Even though she didn’t have many things, she cherished the few things she did have, particularly her Bible. She and Rick had documents that were stolen, their social security cards, their birth certificates, and cherished photographs. They lived like gypsies, like nomads, having to move on when they were no longer wanted somewhere.

The people left out on the streets due to whatever hardship have to keep what belongings they have in a stroller, as they will be arrested for having a shopping cart. So they fit everything into the stroller covered with a tarp. The tarp is for the rain. Imagine having to lay your body out on an open slab with the rain pouring down. Rick and Leonettia and sometimes Bubba would lay their wearied bodies at night on the side of a building, under the roof.

I should have offered Linetta more compassion than I did. She spent the night only once in my apartment. She and Rick had a fight and she called me one night to pick her up at Popeye’s. I picked her up in the rain, she was in tears. She said she and Rick had fought, so she spent the night on my couch. Before she went to sleep we saw The Big Bang Theory on television she told me she used to love that show.

One day it occurred to me that she probably wasn’t able to take a bath, so I told her she could take a bath in my apartment. The first time she did she said, how good the hot water running over her body felt. Things we take for granted. She always left the towel folded neatly over the ledge of the tub. These are the things I will remember about Leonettia, her sweet disposition. Living had given her a rough exterior. She and Rick had lived out on the streets for 5 years. They had lived on my corner for about a year.

The day I met both of them, they needed blankets. Some of the things on their stroller had been robbed. I remember with urgency going home and washing some blankets for them. While I was doing this a Scripture came to my mind about feeding the poor. I went to the store so excited to buy them a rotisserie chicken, and French bread and two waters. Later I learned Leonettia liked Hawaiian bread. The excitement came from giving Jesus chicken. Rick, especially Leonettia was moved.

We knew each other only a few short months, but I felt like I had made a good friend. People, including my family told me to be cautious with Leonettia, as I didn’t really know her. I couldn’t imagine her ever hurting me. She always told me she would never hurt me, and that she trusted me with her life. I was humbled by her words. I don’t know when it happened living on the street she had a genuine heart filled with gratitude.

The most important thing we did together was study the Gospel of John. She used to love our Bible studies. We’d study on the patch of grass outside Wendy’s or around the kitchen table of my apartment. I must admit I didn’t study with her enough we had only studied 16 chapters. Our Lord said, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans 10:17)

Although Leonettia told me she enjoyed our Bible studies, she said she had trouble believing what she couldn’t see, touch, taste, smell, or hear. I explained to her that faith was not tangible, but intangible. It was God’s grace. His Grace brings forth faith, faith is believing that God gave His Only Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins on the Cross, that we could not save ourselves, that the Holy Spirit came into the life of the believer once he or she repented. I explained to her that we were all under the wrath of God because of sin. Only the Blood of Jesus can save us from His wrath, from hell. We prayed about a lot of things, about God giving her an apartment. But we never prayed the sinner’s prayer; the Holy Spirit prays the sinner’s prayer with the soul He is encountering. It was not my place to have her repeat my words. The words of a repentant heart are one’s own sacred words to Holy God. Her repentance could have come in the middle of the night in the intimacy between God and herself. I knew God would bring forth the words through tears in His time. Salvation belongs only to God, and I preached to Leonettia as I was supposed to. And I believe she was saved from God’s Holy wrath.

__________________________________________________________ One day I drove by where Leonettia sat, and asked her if she wanted to go to the post office with me. She walked up to my van slowly out of breath. I put one of my 70’s C.D.’s into the C.D. player to hear on the way. It surprised me maybe it shouldn’t have since we grew up in the same time period, that she knew the words to and sang Gerry Rafferty’s “Right Down the Line”. I will hold onto this particular, simple memory, as I never had a friend or family member even, who knew the words to “Right Down the Line.”

We shared the intimate details of our lives, we talked about our children; she knew Emma. She told me about her children, the son she shared with Rick, Brian, but was not allowed to visit. Every once in awhile she would try and call him but she was never able to talk to him. She beamed when she told me about all of her children, Heather, Joey Ashley, and Brian. She was starting to re-build a relationship with Ashley. Leonettia would tear up. I could not imagine what she must have been through. But she was strong, she had come to a point where she didn’t blame anyone for the decisions she had made in her life.

Sometimes the three of us used to sit on the grass. I used to tell Rick and Leonettia that God wanted them to get married. “When you get your apartment, Rick you’re marrying Leonettia. He said, “Of course.” Leonettia would tease, “I don’t know, I think I can do better.” Then they would eat their meal from Wendy’s. She was crazy about Rick, and he was crazy about her, crazy in-love.

__________________________________________________________

My friend Leonettia was on life support. She may die I don’t know it’s in God’s hands. She and Rick had been together 28 years. Even though they weren’t married, I believe he loved her like a husband loves a wife. It was heart wrenching to see Rick weeping over Leonettia. She lay in repose, hooked up to a breathing machine. I stood there unable to comfort Rick, even more powerless to help Leonettia as she fought to stay alive.

For the last couple of weeks she has been sedated and intubated. In order to be able to visit her I told the staff at the I.C.U. I was her sister, her half sister as only family members were allowed in the I.C.U. I thought I could pass as her half sister, as we were different races. The nurse there told me half sister, whole sister, it didn’t matter.

The morning we went to the family meeting, Rick had left his stuff near the hedge near the Wendy’s. So distraught he didn’t care. He had asked me and Matt, my neighbor to see if his stuff was still there in the morning. On my way to the hospital, I saw a man with a stroller just like Rick’s. I didn’t tell him anything, but drove to see if his stuff was still where he left it. To my amazement, it was. His son Ricky “Bubba” had spent the night there. I told him his dad was in the hospital with Leonettia. As we spoke a police car came up, and buzzed them. It was a special sound designed by the police for the homeless people. It meant to move on, or get out of the thin divider where the u-turns are made. Anyway, it was a rude noise that treated the homeless people like animals.

Even as Leonettia lay fighting for her life in the I.C.U. a police officer drove by and wanted them to remove their stroller with all of their belongings. I told her, about Rick and Leonettia. "She is in the I.C.U. hooked up to life support, her husband went to see her. “Can’t you give them another day?” She was determined to put their belongings into storage. I asked her, “Where do you want them to go?”

There is no compassion for the population known as the homeless. They are brave, and they fight hard every day just to survive, something we take for granted. Yet, they are demonized, and marginalized. I think we hate seeing the homeless because it reflects how much apathy we have in our own hearts; we don’t want to feel bad, we don’t want to see others suffering and have to help them. We want our own convenience. We, as individuals don’t want to get involved. It is a travesty that we have people living out on the streets like animals. Even criminals live better. The homeless are treated worse than anyone, except the unborn. Even with all the dirt and grime on their bodies, they are cleaner on the inside than a lot of people. There are a lot of us who are stained with dirt and grime on the inside, where we think no one can see but there is One who sees.

Without Jesus we are all dirty it is a condition of sin. Some of us wear it on the outside, but we all carry our own filthy rags on the inside until we are cleansed by the Blood of Jesus.

Jesus said, “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” (Matthew 19:30)

Leonettia is the last according to the rankings of this world. The people who live out on the streets are last. But God has not forgotten them. He sees them and has a plan for them. He had a plan for Leonettia, a plan to give her everlasting life, a plan to seat her in the heavenly places, a plan to give her a permanent home. Even in the best mansions, these are still makeshift homes. Leonettia moved to the top of the list. I used to tell her, that she and Rick would get an apartment this year. We made goals on her planner.

The last time I saw Leonettia was Christmas Eve to leave her and Rick some Christmas presents. I should have stayed longer. I thought I had more time. But every day is urgent. Every day is a gift.

Two days later, Rick called the emergency. Leonettia’s face had swelled, her eyes were glazed over and she was incoherent. The next day Rick came by my apartment to tell me that she had double pneumonia and was in the intensive care unit.

It’s hard for me to think she has been in the I.C.U. nearly 3 weeks now. She is fighting for her life. Leonettia has been fighting so long. Her doctors don’t hold out much hope. She will be allowed to breath for herself on Monday, which her lungs are too damaged to do.

Leonettia was one precious life in a sea of people living out on the streets, and she was worth so much, a lovely lady created in the Image of God.

If she doesn’t make it, I believe she will be walking the streets of Heaven paved with gold. She will be with our Lord Jesus Christ, and that is “a good thing, a very good thing.”

My friend Leonettia passed away on January 16, 2017. ________________________________________

“For God so loved the world that He gave

His only begotten Son, that whoever believes

In Him should not perish but have everlasting

Life.”

(John 3:16)

“But God demonstrates His own love towards

Us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ

Died for us.

Much more having now been justified

By His blood, we shall be saved from wrath

Through Him.”

(Romans 5:8-9)