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My Brother's Keeper When we left the hospital, my son Leonard was so drained he couldn't even hold up his head. With one arm supporting his frail body and the other dragging our suitcases, I led us to the subway. It had been about a year since Leonard was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a cancer that is almost always fatal. He was just 14 years old, and hundreds of tumors had spread throughout his body. In the fall of 1979 the doctor he had been seeing near our home in Pennsylvania gave him six weeks to live, but I wouldn't give up. I took him to Sloan Kettering in New York City, one of the best cancer treatment centers in the country. To keep up with the rigorous daily treatments, Leonard and I had to stay with a relative in nearby Queens. That's where we were headed that day. About a block from the subway it began to rain, and Leonard nearly collapsed. I held him while he threw up. I felt we were invisible to the rushing crowd until I heard a voice say, "You need help, lady." I looked up to see a homeless man leaning over us. Fearing trouble, I replied firmly, "I'm fine. Thank you." He stepped back, then addressed me again, "You need help, lady." We did, but I said, "No, we're O.K. We just have to get to my niece's in Queens. We'll be all right." Without a word, he lifted up our suitcase and headed to the subway. That case had our money in it, so we scurried after him. It was too loud to talk on the train, so I took a long look at this man who was holding my valise. He was wearing jeans, sneakers and a cutoff Army jacket with war badges. His eyes were white and clear, no signs of drugs. I realized what was happening--this man saw we needed help and gave it. We reached our stop, got off and followed the man off the train and into the street. He grabbed a cab, threw the suitcase in the back and yelled, "Come on, lady!" As I pressed a five-dollar bill in the man's hand, he said softly, "Don't abandon me." Minutes later we were safely at my niece's home. His plea played over and over in my mind. I couldn't sleep that night. Thankfully, two years later, Leonard showed signs of a miraculous recovery. Although we were able to spend more time at home with my husband and our two other children, Leonard and I regularly went to the city for follow-up tests. Our route was always the same. Each time, I saw a homeless man--not the one who had helped us--who lived under a bridge. One cold, foggy morning, I saw the man asleep, wrapped in a bright-pink crocheted blanket that someone had given him so he wouldn't freeze to death. I had worked as a nurse for 17 years and knew very well the dangers of hypothermia. That moment trigged the memory of the other homeless man who had helped Leonard and me. "Don't abandon me," he had said. And finally I realized what it all meant. When we got home, I asked the kids to bring me clothes they didn't wear anymore. I went out to the barn to see what sewing supplies I had stored there. When I got back, I found a heap of jeans, shirts and sweaters on the family-room floor. Using sewing skills that I had learned from my grandmother, I set out to make a warm blanket for a homeless person. First, I split the seams of all the clothes we had gathered to make flat scraps of fabric. I found two old bedspreads and laid them on the floor. I layered the flat fabric scraps on one bedspread and put the other bedspread on top. I sewed around the sides and used quilting techniques to secure the filler. I folded it in half and stitched up the side to make a sleeping bag. The next week, on a bitter-cold winter night, my husband, Jim, and I went into Manhattan to give away the bag. Driving around, I spotted a man huddled in the doorway of a building. It was so dark I couldn't see his face, but I could see that he had no coat. "Can you used a sleeping bag, buddy?" Jim asked. Shivering, the man reached out his bare arms and whispered, "Thank you." By the end of 1982 we had made eight sleeping bags. Each time we distributed them, we learned more about the survival culture in the street and incorporated what we learned into the design. We settled on a dimension of 7 feet by 7 feet, big enough so even a mother and her child could disappear inside. We turned neckties into handles so the bags could be rolled up and carried, and stuffed each bag with mittens, hats and sweaters. My neighbors often dropped off fabric for us to use. Word of our project spread in our rural area. The pastor's wife at a local church called one Saturday and invited me to demonstrate how to make the quilts. Before I spoke, we named our family project My Brother's Keeper Quilt Group. To make sure that volunteers weren't scared off by the quilting part, we called our bags Ugly Quilts. We wanted people to say, "That's how I can help!" just as I did when I saw that homeless man wrapped in the pink blanket. We produced a comprehensive, one-page instruction handout on how to make and distribute an Ugly Quilt (link here). I encourage people to tuck a message of hope from a religion of their choice into each one. Over the next several years, making Ugly Quilts became pet projects of local churches, schools ad scouting groups. Like a revival of the old sewing bees, women gathered regularly to sew and socialize. It's an incredible feeling for people to share time on a project like this, a tremendous spirit of common goal to do good that transcends religious denomination, economic status, age and all the other labels that often separate us. When the Ugly Quilts are finished, many of them are delivered to our house. As soon as they arrive, we take them to people in New York, Scranton, Philadelphia and other nearby cities. Sometimes shelters call us directly; other times we distribute on our own. Last year we gave out more than 5,300 Ugly Quilts. We've been shocked by the despair we see in the streets. But even in dark times you find humanity. Recently we were in Manhattan, and we pulled up next to a man holding a cardboard sign that read, "I Need Food." Jim said to him, "I don't have any food, but do you want a sleeping bag?" The man nodded and motioned us to follow him around the corner. We couldn't believe what we saw: an entire encampment of homeless men, women and children. The man asked politely, "Can I give one to my friend?" He walked over to a large cardboard box with a wheelchair parked next to it and offered the first bag to his friend, who lived in the box. He came back to ask for one for himself. "Can I have that purple one?" he asked. Just having a choice restored his dignity for a moment. Some people think our efforts keep the homeless on the streets. Recently a local church invited me to speak at a covered-dish dinner. Afterward, a man told me that he thought our work enables drug addiction and perpetuates homelessness. Like a lot of people, he thinks the homeless are lazy bums who choose not to take care of themselves. There are people out there who are clearly unable to care for themselves, but I don't have time to engage in arguments like that. When I think of the homeless, I ask myself, "What would Christ do?" The answer is that he would reach out. We're not out to make new pals or solve the underlying problem. We're out to prevent
someone from freezing to death. I don't think we'll do away with homelessness, but as long
as there are people without a place to live, we'll be making Ugly Quilts. How you can help the homeless Instructions on how to make an ugly quilt Where do the sleeping bags go? Pictures of an ugly quilt What people are saying and How to reach My Brothers' Keeper Links to other charity sites |