He's Our Responsibility

He scared me the first time I saw him. I was riding on a motorcycle after dark and our headlights flashed a crossed his face. The lights reflected the white glaze covering his left eye. He was dirty, half blind, and extremely old. We passed him and I never said a word, but his face stayed with me.

The next day we headed to town early to do our grocery shopping at the market. On our way I saw him again. He was walking down the road hunched over an old walking stick. A tattered straw hat shaded his face. This time I asked about him.

“Who was he?”

“Where was he going?”

“Where is his family?”

 His name is Bonbass. He has no family, and he’s just walking everywhere and nowhere. I suggested we buy him something to eat, so we stopped and purchased food from a near by street vender. When we returned to give him the meal he was gone. For thirty minutes we drove around looking for him, but he was nowhere to be found. I ended up giving the meal to another lady that looked like she needed help. In Haiti you never have to look far for hungry people.

“We’ll help him next time,” I thought.

A week later I was standing along the road watching him walk towards me. Kenzy and I stood in silence as he slowly made his way to where we were standing.  I noticed his shirt was buttoned crooked and he was pigeon toed.

“In American we have homes for people like this. Nurses would take care of him,” I whispered to my husband.

“Really,” He said. “We don’t have anything like that in Haiti.”

When he finally greeted us we asked if he could show us his home. He agreed and motioned for us to follow him. We crossed a small ditch and came upon an opened area with 4 little huts built in a circle. They were nice little houses for Haitian standards. It was a small community of people living and helping one another.

“This isn’t so bad,” I thought.

However, Bonbass, walked passed the houses and started down an overgrown path. We marched through tall weeds that were damp from the rain that had recently fallen. Briers and small sticks scratched my legs as we made our way through the bush. Bonbass, wasn’t wearing shoes. He probably didn’t own any.

After a little while we came to his home. It was in the middle of an empty field away from the rest of the community. His house had been built by a mission organization at one time. Samaritan’s Purse built shelters for people in need after the earthquake hit. It was small, about the size of one of our tool sheds. It had four plywood walls and a plywood roof. It had a concrete floor and a small padlock to keep Bonbass’s possessions safe.  We all stood at the door while he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny leaf folded around his house key. I wasn’t prepared for what he was about to show me inside his home.

He opened the door and it took me a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light. As I peered into the dark little hut I saw that this man had nothing. There was no bed, no clothes, no plates to eat on, and no pots to cook with. Nothing! The only thing in the entire house was a piece of cardboard spread out on the floor where he slept.

I immediately began to think about my own grandfather back home and my body stiffened as I tried not to cry.  What if my papaw was living like this? What if my papaw reached an age where he was no use to anyone and everyone just left him behind? What if my papaw became more of a burden than a blessing?

Bonbass is my papaw! He’s your papaw too. And now that we know he’s there he’s our responsibility.