Hugo's World

After having a challenging week I walked closer to the lake here in Toronto and I decided to say hi to a fellow homeless who was sitting in a tent finishing a new tattoo to his collection of few hundreds.

I was feeling sorry about myself for my struggles digesting the crypto scam I suffered previously and a setback last week but Randy gave me a different perspective.

After telling him about my work, my kid with special needs, my rescued dog, helping my ex partner with autoimmune diseases he asked me without hesitation what do you do for you? and made me think that we (people) typically judge people in the streets but we don’t see that these individuals are people like us but for some reason they are in a deeper hole of issues than us and I felt that my scam issue was a temporary matter and eventually my finances and my life post separation will be ok but his case was much deeper with mental health and drugs.

He shared with me his background from the east of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland of his ancestors and told him that a while ago when I went back to school in a Tim Hortons that I used to work for I remembered another homeless from Nova Scotia coming to my store for free water and whatever he could get for free.

After my inspirational deep conversation with this individual I found out that he was 34 and has 3 kids and one of them he was going to meet first time in the next month or so.

During the following day my head was full of thoughts post Randy’s chat and I decided to make a public announcement of the scam that I got involved this year for public awareness of my struggles and hopefully being able to share with media my experience for public awareness, education and advocacy for mental health support during difficult times.

In the middle of this trouble experience i am finding blessings along the way such as being back to my faith, having a wonderful support group starting from work, acquaintances, family and lucky enough to have a therapist to keep me on track with my mental health.

On the other hand, next time when someone see a homeless please don’t ignore that person, he/she can teach you something unique to move forward in whatever you are facing and try to support them sharing some food, a talk because they are people and they don’t deserve to be ignored and judged.