A Christmas Story: From Homeless to Hopeful

I remember clearly how I felt that December afternoon, forced to wash my hair in a toilet in preparation for a job interview. Asked to leave home by my father a few weeks earlier, a year after my mom died from breast cancer, I had seen all of my options to find shelter expire.  After drying myself off with paper towels, my grimy hair was now soapy. I listened a moment to make sure the bathroom was empty before I came out and saw my humiliating appearance in the mirror. After shedding some tears, I went back into the stall and cried some more. Why was this happening to me?  

I would finish that job interview later in the day and wait in the cold, frigid night by a payphone, the number I had given to the job recruiter to call if I got the job to stuff envelopes at a mailing company in Great Neck. That night back in 1983 the wind was fierce, bitterly smacking my face as I tried to seek shelter between the phone booth's short hard plastic walls. It had no mercy on my legs or back. And there was no call coming that night, or at least I thought there wasn't. I was just too cold to wait around any longer. So I hauled my green garbage bag of belongings over my shoulder and headed back to the New York City subway system to ride the E Train from Union Turnpike in Queens to Chambers Street in Manhattan.

It was the day before Christmas Eve and I sought shelter and warmth away from the holiday faces, filled with so much hope and happiness. Couples chatted away, bags overflowing with red-ribboned gifts while little children gazed with bliss in anticipation of Santa climbing down their chimneys. One woman, newly engaged, kept staring at her sparkling diamond ring with the biggest smile you had ever seen. Hope was everywhere that night on the E Train. I wondered if I would ever feel it again.

I hoisted my hood as far as I could over my head and face, mortified by a five-day old beard and my grubby appearance. I leaned against the side of the subway car and prayed that this was just a bad nightmare. My stomach lurched and I rocked back and forth in the seat, realizing this was my home.

 I had so many questions but not a single answer as to why I -- a recent college graduate -- had ended up here. This was supposed to happen to other people or so I thought. I pulled a notebook and pen out of my torn plastic bag and started to write down some of my experiences as a child and young adult.  

I reflected on my relationships with my family, watching my mom, destroyed physically as she battled cancer over a two-year period, passing away at the age of 48. I wondered why I had such a terrible relationship with my father, the man who took me to my first baseball game in 1969, a day the Mets defeated the Cubs. We were so happy then when Ed Kranepool smashed a home run over the center field fence at Shea Stadium. I can still see the flight of the ball sitting in the upper deck. The good times had decreased over the years, especially while my mom was ill. During my remaining time at home, I hid mostly upstairs in my attic bedroom, door locked, seeking emotional safety.

For the next week, I continued to ride the train and write what would later become the start of my first novel, Necessary Heartbreak: A Novel of Faith and Forgiveness, a time-travel journey from modern day Long Island to first century Jerusalem. I would get off the train in the morning, head over to a local university to look at any posted job openings, and make more phone calls from a payphone. And I continued to write.

On New Year's Eve in 1983, I was desperate to stay warm but now scared to stay on the train overnight. I went back to an old church in Queens for a service and hid in the back under a pew near the organ. The click of the doors locking was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard.

 I walked to the front of the church and finally found peace, secure in the beauty of the baby Jesus lying in a wooden cradle. I wrote a lot too, penning a memory that still haunts me to this day. In a house filled with many emotional barriers, I asked for forgiveness for waiting until two weeks before my mother died to finally tell her, "I love you."

My mom and I had cried then. I told her we would meet again in heaven. She wasn't able to talk but she nodded. I had felt so helpless. But there, in that church, I felt empowered, able to communicate at last from my heart. I wrote throughout the evening and early morning hours, even talking to the Christ child, picking Him up, cradling the baby much like I did when my daughters were born.

The next night I was back on the train, watching many of society's downtrodden and fallen, realizing I was now one of them, learning a hard lesson of compassion and sensitivity. Not everyone was a drug addict or alcoholic, like I had been conditioned to think. There were many like myself who had some terrible luck.

Eventually, my aunt and uncle from Syosset rescued me from the train. But I wonder how many were as fortunate as I was to have such support? How many of my fellow demoralized brothers and sisters never made it off the train? How many never received a second chance at life like I did?

Many years later, married and blessed with two wonderful daughters, I decided to revisit my material. I first self-published it in 2008 and then, last year, I received an email from Anthony Ziccardi, a VP of Simon & Schuster, requesting the publishing rights to Necessary Heartbreak: A Novel of Faith and Forgiveness. I was able to add even more memories from that particular time of my life, adding more depth and empathy to the story.

 Through the book's publication this year, I've met and heard from many others who have been homeless or are close to it, families affected by cancer or some who are battling the dreaded disease now, widows and widowers who have moved forward with a new relationship. They've told me their stories, how they fight to survive, what inspires them, and how they now appreciate the greatest gift we have – time.  What I've found out from my journey some 27 years ago is we are all connected somehow through our hardships – everyone has had their share. I started my recovery and healing process reconnecting with my faith inside an old church in Queens. If you are struggling with your own today, may you find the strength to find the same path I did on that cold December night.

Merry Christmas!

Michael J. Sullivan is the author of Necessary Heartbreak: A Novel of Faith and Forgiveness, published by Gallery Books of Simon & Schuster. He is currently finishing up his second novel, "The Greatest Christmas." He lives on Long Island with his wife and daughters.