My Thanksgiving as a Resident at the Homeless Shelter

What Thanksgiving Day looks like through the lens of someone with nothing.

I’ve considered sitting down and writing about my life for a long time now. Though it would be a cathartic act for me, that’s not what has made me want to share it with the world. I think sometimes people think they have a firm grasp of who someone is but have never attempted to get to know who they truly are. Other times, the person has buried things so deep inside with the hopes of just moving forward that it’s too painful to dig up the past.

Though I’ve been a victim several times over, I am NOT a victim and don’t ever want to be labeled as such. I have used my experiences as stepping stones towards a brighter future for myself and for my children. I didn’t wallow in the pain and suffering and use victimhood as a crutch & never will.

“You are a museum.

Some people will stay away because they’re simply not interested.

Some will only explore the first floor because they find the whole thing intimidating.

Some will only visit for the temporary exhibit.

And some will scan all the floors but won’t learn any of the context.

Only few will spend hours reading into the depths of what’s on display.

And those are the ones who will cherish you.”

~evie

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For many, Thanksgiving is a special time for loved ones to gather around a table and share a meal. For some, it’s the only time they get to see distant family members and catch up for the year. For others, it’s a day of loneliness and a reminder of what they don’t have.

When I think back on Thanksgiving meals as a young girl, most were full of different dishes made with love. Old recipes passed down that only grandma could pull off that you looked forward to every year were eaten at the “kids’ table”. Dishes piled to the ceiling were washed while I skipped and played outside in piles of orange, red, and yellow leaves that had fallen over previous weeks. Football on the TV, the men in the family nodding off on the couch and recliners after a few plates of turkey, stuffing, deviled eggs, and maybe a bowl of peach cobbler or pumpkin pie.

These fleeting memories are all I can really remember of celebrating this holiday. I was too young to remember any of the deep conversations, or family spats & trauma sustained over the years has left my memories a challenge to retrieve.

I can also remember around the time when these family holiday celebrations stopped. After losing loved ones, Thanksgiving (and Christmas) started to look much different. There were no more gatherings of cousins, aunts, and grandparents. There were no more uncles or grandpas falling asleep on the recliners after gorging themselves. No more card tables turned “kids’ tables” pulled out, no sounds of football commentators in the background, or rolling around in piles of leaves.

As I grew older and loved ones passed, the celebration of family and fellowship ceased to exist. One year, after my parents had divorced I held Thanksgiving in my two-bedroom apartment. It was only my parents, my sister, and my boyfriend. The five of us didn’t even have enough room to sit to eat. We made our plates and sat down on the loveseat and two kitchen chairs. I’m pretty sure my father just stood at the kitchen counter to eat.

This holiday continued to dwindle down and mean less and less every year as family members died, those living became more distant, and for that matter, money became tighter and food less plentiful.

During a specific year, I discovered myself seeking refuge at a homeless shelter as they geared up for a Thanksgiving celebration for the occupants. My presence there was a result of abruptly leaving a physically abusive boyfriend in the dead of night, finding myself with no alternative place to turn. While this instance marked just one of several stays at this shelter during the challenging period of rebuilding my life, I distinctly recall the moment I entered the front office. They documented images of my injuries with photographs, which were subsequently attached with a paper clip to my intake paperwork.

What was to be a temporary, emergency situation for me to protect myself and my son became home. I can remember seeing people from within the community pulling up to drop off food. Turkeys were donated from local groceries, churches would bring industrial-sized cans of corn or green beans, and grocery stores would drop off dinner rolls that were expiring and going to be otherwise thrown in the dumpster.

While this was a lovely thing to see the community doing, I can remember thinking at the time - where are these donations any other day of the year?

I was tasked with helping to organize and put all of the incoming donations in the kitchen pantry, which normally had many empty shelves. Bags and bags of food were being dropped off.

Where normally, residents would be serving the meal and scooping food onto plates, on Thanksgiving Day, they were replaced with people from the community who all were sure to get their photographic evidence to post on social media showing what virtuous, good people they were to be doing such a thing. Which, they were. It was good that they were doing this for the community, but good acts are done for God, not for social media. There’s a big difference between doing something for (of) God and doing something for praise and admiration.

On this day, the large dining room where I normally stood in line to receive breakfast, lunch, and dinner (at the specified times) was decorated with yellows, oranges, and browns. The tables all held centerpieces made of crayon-colored paper turkeys from children at a nearby school. Paper leaves, also colored by students, could be seen around the windows, with the occasional pumpkin lining the walls.

This day was not much different than the others. We stood in line, one resident behind the other waiting to pick up our food trays, silverware, and paper napkins before filling the trays with plates of warm food cooked and served by strangers from the community.

After going through the line and picking out where I’d planned to sit, I laid down my son’s tray and then went to fill his cup with juice from the drink table that was always set up at the front. Then I stood back in line to take my turn getting my own tray of food and drink.

The large dining room, usually a third of the way full was overflowing this day. There were two or three extra chairs pulled up to tables that normally held four. There were square tables pulled together to make tables that could now hold 10+.

Next to residents who had by this time become my pseudo-family were family members of their own. Mothers, cousins, friends, a few fathers, and grandparents were there sitting next to people who I’d adopted over the course of a few months.

I remember sitting and looking around the room at so many of the people I spent time with day in and day out who I’d never seen crack a smile laughing, hope in their eyes, and joy imminating from their bodies. The normally hunched over sat up a little straighter, the uptight ones were animated and dare I say…happy.

I can remember being so grateful to be able to have a warm place and warm food to provide my own child with, though it wasn’t by my own hands. I was there, with him and he was being provided for, which was as much as I was able to do at the time. I remember looking over at him while he gobbled down his meal and praying to get out of this situation.

While I was beyond grateful in that moment, my heart was also breaking. This wasn’t any different than any other day while I lived there- my heart in shambles, and my brain constantly trying to calculate the next few steps to being self-sufficient and independent again. A road that took much longer to travel than I would have liked, but one traveled nonetheless, one foot in front of the other, starting with absolutely nothing but the clothes on my back since that’s all I’d taken with me the night I decided to leave.

Looking around the room and listening to the overwhelming sounds of joy and laughter bouncing off the walls of the dining room, the crowd slowly began to thin out. After dumping their trays of uneaten food in the trash can by the dishwashing window, small groups started to walk out together and congregate outside. My table made up of myself, my son, and those of us who had no family come to visit did the same.

I remember going out into the field after family members who had come to visit eventually left and a few dozen of us residents standing in a circle and holding hands.

One of the residents, who stood about 6’7”, towering over the rest of us, began to lead in a prayer. He reminded me a lot of John Coffeey from Green Mile. A behemoth of a man, with a deep and barreling voice, but a gentle disposition. Though I’ll never remember the words of this prayer, I can remember feeling an immense energy between my hands and those I was connected to. It’s something I’ve never felt before, or since.

In that moment we were together and giving all the glory to God for the blessings we’d just received. This was my family.

This post and many others on Kennington Report are personal stories that are very difficult to read and write. Please consider subscribing to read the article in its entirety and support my work.