Lessons from a (Formerly) Homeless Dad...

                                                               Formerly Homeless

                                                    Lessons from a ^ Homeless Dad

Good Saturday morning, everyone.

It’s 10 AM here in the highlands of Virginia, where I now reside with my daughter.

This is the second Saturday in years that I’ve woken up in my own place. The second Saturday that I sat at my kitchen table as the sun rose and sipped my coffee, from my LU coffee mug. Coffee that I made in my coffee maker (one of the very few surviving household items from when I last owned a home) and then went over my prayer list, and read the Bible, and prayed for things, and thought, and planned, and did what most everyone takes for granted.

It’s been almost two weeks since we’ve been here. It took some getting used to...this crazy idea of sleeping indoors, showering in my own bathroom, cooking real food in my kitchen, and doing the things that parents do for my daughter.

I’ve run the gamut of emotions from disbelief, to joy, to relief. I’ve felt the walls that I constructed around my heart, to hide the shame and embarrassment, begin to crumble.  With each piece of those walls that fell, an accompanying river of tears fell too. I would not dare to pretend that what I have endured over these last six years is anything remotely like the dreadful terror of battle, but I do think that the way the human body handles stress is the same, regardless of the stimulus.

I’ve talked to soldiers who will unanimously say that when the bullets are flying and the bombs are exploding and the shrieks of pain and horror are mixed with the resounding thunder of artillery, you don’t have time for emotion. You are scared, and you are pumped up on adrenaline and you are in survival mode. You see the horror but you don’t have a single moment to process it, so it gets stored away someplace. It’s not when the battle is hottest that your tears come, and your hands shake, and your nightmares begin. It’s after.

It’s in the deathly silence that follows the cease fire, when the smoke is clearing, and the battlefield becomes visible again, and you can see how much this war has changed the landscape...and how much it changed you. That’s when you let out your breath and reflect on what you just lived through, and that’s when you start to feel it. That’s when the tears fall.

That has happened over the past two weeks. It happened this morning. I was sitting at my table, reading my book. A few years ago I heard Ravi Zacharias describe his morning worship time by relaying that he struggled for years getting his mind into the right frame. I was shocked, to say the least, as Ravi is my hero, and one of the greatest minds in modern Christendom, and a man devoted wholly to God. To realize that, he too wrestles with the mind being unruly at an early hour gave me hope. He shared, on his broadcast, his routine for his worship time and I began following it to great success. He reads one chapter from a Christian book, most frequently Malcolm Muggeridge or C.S. Lewis. This gets his mind in the mode of processing sacred writing. So he moves to his Bible reading. Then after that he is ready for prayer.

This morning I was reading through (for the second time) “Building Dynamic Faith” by my beloved Dr. Falwell. I moved from there to the first four chapters of Matthew and then I began working on my prayer list. Already, in the two weeks since we’ve been here, there are a couple of small items I was able to cross off. A microwave, some dishes, carpentry jobs until my position within LU opens up, success in my first interview. I’ve already received some answers for these.

I started to write down the updated requests and the tears began. I stopped and put the notebook down and I was hearing in my mind, the words of the great Zig Ziglar who said “If you fail to be thankful for what you have, before long you won’t have anything to be thankful for.” I thought about the day in July 2011 when I drove to Dallas at the invitation of Zig’s daughter Julie, and met he and his wife, and Julie and her brother Tom, and we spent time walking around the office and then went to lunch at Zig’s favorite Chinese restaurant. I thought about how many times I have played those now-worn cassettes that a friend gave me, and how much Zig’s wisdom kept me going in this darkness. I thought about him saying that we need to be thankful for everything.

So right here in my kitchen, at 6:30-ish this morning, the dam broke again and I sat here in tears, praying my thanks for everything I could think of. Thanks for my coffee and this table that sits in my kitchen, that is part of my new little townhome, where my daughter lives with me. Thanks for the opportunity I have to go to work for my alma mater. To work with the hockey program I am so proud to have been a part of. Thanks for the work I have gotten that will pay the bills until I am officially hired at Liberty. Thanks for my daughter. Thanks for God not getting tired of me when I doubted His plan. Thanks that, while my faith was frequently messy and weak and ragged...it was enduring. I failed many times along the journey. But I did not quit. This morning I remembered Zig repeating to me in his office that day, what he’d said so many thousands of times before... “Failure is an event. Not a person”

I have failed often over the last 6-plus years. But I did not quit. If you fail nine times but you succeed on the tenth...you are a success. Because you stayed in the game until you made it work. Doc always said “It’s not what it takes to knock a man down that he is measured by...it’s what it takes to keep him down.”

                                                         

January of 2007 I lost my home. May of 2008 I lost my career, and could not renew my lease, and became homeless. In that time I was hired by three companies that all ended up going out of business. That’s four bankrupted companies if you include the mortgage company that folded and began this mess. I was also hired by one mortgage company who promptly rescinded the offer one week later because of Obamacare and the cost of adding another loan officer’s benefits package. But in that same period...that exact same time frame...I returned to college and completed my Bachelors degree. I wrote four books and have become – I think- a progressively better writer with each effort. I started a small carpentry business and did some very impressive work. I preached in three churches and taught a men’s conference that changed lives. Most of all...I showed my daughter that her dad loves her more than creature comfort, more than his pride, more than his reputation or his standing in the world. I was there for every single school activity and every birthday. I stood tall and refused to let her see me defeated. She saw me beaten, but she never saw me quit. I am thankful that God gave me just enough strength to endure to the end.

I believe the best is yet to come and that it’s right around the bend. I believe I have already written at least one best seller. My Christmas book The Ragamuffin’s Christmas, is a classic and one of the most unique takes on the nativity I have ever read. The only thing keeping it anonymous is word of mouth. It will happen. I believe “Remembering America...” is a joyous, fun, sweet read that also has the potential to be a best seller, because it leaves you feeling great when you are finished reading it. I believe my daughter’s best two years of high school will be these final two years. I believe I will get to tell my story –and so will she- and we’ll inspire others to simply not give up.

I realized one great truth in this. That God is always up to something. He knew, long before the mortgage industry collapsed and I lost my house, that this was all part of the plan. What felt catastrophic and permanently devastating was merely the boat pulling away from the dock and leaving the safety of the harbor. Those endless nights trying to sleep in the front seat of a Volvo, and later in the cargo area of a Yukon...those were just my years at sea. My walk through the desert. My time when God was taking one unshaped piece of metal, and beating on it until it was reshaped and then fine tuning it until it became a sculpture.

I’ve learned a lot of lessons and I guess I’ll be recounting them here over time. But the first and most important was, and is...”Never quit.”

                                                     You may fail, but you can never quit.

                                                         Someday, you will say “thanks.”

The Journey of a Homeless dad: Will I ever trust God again?

A little over a week ago, I began a new journey in this wild, roller-coaster-gone-off-its-rails life of mine. A new chapter that seems to place the coaster solidly back on it’s track.

Last Monday, my daughter and I arrived in Lynchburg, Virginia to begin a new life together.

I was homeless for 4 ½ of the past 6 years and I’ve been divorced for almost 14 years now. In all that time, I lived with one goal...the day she’d come to live with me. It didn’t happen the way I had thought it might. When I laid out my life map, I didn’t see the detour through homelessness. I didn’t see the “Man Under Construction” signs. I didn’t see 4 ½ years where she couldn’t spend the night, I couldn’t tuck her in, or make her breakfast.

But God did.

There is a lot for me to digest, now that this is over. The first two days we were here I found myself sneaking off to my room, many times, to break down into sobs where she couldn’t see me. First it was the pain I felt that my daughter is with me, and that means she’s 500 miles from her mom. It had to be this way –which angers me on several levels- but her mom knew this was the best thing for her and she agreed to let her come here. We haven’t gotten along for much of our post divorced life, but I have to give her credit for doing what is best for our daughter on this.

Still...it seemed like the first two days here drew a giant exclamation point on the fact that I am divorced. That my daughter has never really known an intact family. I was broken hearted. This was not the dream I had for my little girl when she was born.

Then too, I think I wept so frequently during those first few days, because I was finally able to say I was formerly homeless. Over the past six years this had become my identity. I wore this like a holocaust cloak and it grew heavier every day. In my gut I still have a nagging fear that something bad might happen, and I’ll be homeless again. Maybe this is what those folks who lived through the Depression felt...never again feeling like they had enough security, no matter how much money or food they could stockpile, or how far ahead they could pay their bills. I suppose that’s not an entirely bad thing, it will keep you hungry, and make you smarter with what you have. But there is no rest there.

And I need rest.

This thing has worn me down to a nub and I feel the effects. I hope the old happy-go-lucky Craig reappears someday soon. Mostly...I hope my prayer life can be restored. I don’t pray for myself very much. I have a hard time trusting God to do the things I need done each day, and so I take the burden onto my stout shoulders and find my own way. I guess the combination of Immigrant grandparent work ethic, having success at most stages in my life, (before the mortgage collapse) and the haunting feeling of being alone in this world, drives me to find a solution as fast as I can. I have a terrible time with looking at a problem and saying “Okay Lord, I don’t have an answer...it’s up to you.”

I have to have an answer. I’m a dad. My daughter is depending on me to have one.  If I fail this time she goes down with me. That wakes me up at night.

I feel numb. I thought that when this long desert was over I’d have a lot to say about it, but –at least right now- I don’t. I can barely string my thoughts together where my life as a homeless dad is concerned. It’s all a blur. A long, embarrassing, agonizing, shameful, painful blur. The only thing I know, that I know...is that God is good. God was always with me in this, and somehow the pieces will come together and this puzzle with take on a shape and ultimately it will have a purpose. That last statement just brought me to tears. Because over the past 6 years, when I have raged in the night, shook my fist at heaven, barked out my anger, demanded that God tell me “What the &^%$ do you want from me?!” (which I had literally screamed at the top of my lungs more than once during this debacle) and once or twice imagined myself walking up to His throne and punching Him right in the face, (yes...I’m sorry but I got that angry with Him sometimes) I always fell back on that one truth. That one lifesaving truth that reminded me that God was not surprised by my calamity, and that He still loved me. Sometimes He just has a funny way of showing it. But He is good. He had a plan all along and I am blessed enough to still be alive to see it playing out. I don’t know what lies ahead. I do know that my daughter is along for this portion of the ride and that gives me hope.

Which I haven’t had in a long time.

The journey continues...

Six years as a homeless dad...

Yesterday marked six years of homelessness.

It’s not something I’m proud of. I didn’t celebrate with dinner and a cake and party favors. It’s humiliating. It’s embarrassing. It crushes my soul. It makes me cry.

A lot.

Six years ago, I was hastily loading every single thing I owned onto a friends open trailer and driving them to a barn where he said I could store them for a while. It was an all day job and it was made longer by the hurt of what was happening to my world and my fatherhood. I had no idea where I’d go. No job prospects, no friends with an extra room or a couch I could crash on. Six years later none of that stuff remains. I have no beds. No furniture. Not even silverware and dishes. Nothing.

About six weeks prior, the mortgage company I had worked for, for the last four years, folded it’s operations and moved out of Tennessee. Within another year, they’d be out of business altogether, bankrupt and the owner slapped with a two-billion dollar federal lawsuit.

It wasn’t just the fact that the company I worked for was gone. They were all gone. I couldn’t just latch on with another mortgage company because the entire industry was imploding. In one year, the entire industry went from about 600,000 employees, to about 100,000. That’s 80% of the entire mortgage workforce gone...looking for something else in a collapsing economy.

I’ve detailed my life over these last six years so there’s no need to do it. But there are some highlights...or lowlights.

Since 2008 I have worked for FOUR companies that ended up going out of business. FOUR! How many people can make that claim?

I graduated from College while still homeless. I thought it would give me a chance at a better future but this economy is far to damaged to provide opportunities for anyone with qualifications. And we have a president who wants it that way.

I remained here in Nashville when I could have gone to one of the few areas in this country that still have employment opportunities, but that would have required me to leave my daughter behind. I could never do that and the events in her life over the last 4 weeks have borne out the fact that I was correct in that decision. Me staying here likely kept her alive.

I wish I could rightly describe what this life feels like. What it’s like to wake up at 3 AM and break into sobs because you snap out of the fog of sleep and realize “I am someone’s dad and I’m homeless.”

I wish I could express to you what it feels like to drift from place to place when it’s raining and you can’t work, because you have no place to call your own.

I wish I could tell you how demeaning it is to be entirely dependent on public restrooms and showering at the gym, having to arrange your work day so that you get a shower before they close at night.

I wish you could understand what it’s like to open the door of your car and feel the rush of shame when you realize someone caught a glimpse of the inside and they surely realized you are living in there.

I wish you could grasp how all this feels when you have a daughter and she knows you are homeless and she tries to encourage you because you stayed in her life and you did this for her sake. But she really needs you and needs you to have a place to live so she can escape the hell she is living in.

I wish you could understand what it’s like to literally feel the days escaping your grip.

I have doubted God. I have wondered where He was and why He wasn’t answering. I have shaken my fist at Heaven and spit at the ground. Then, always, I have broken down in tears and confessed that I still believe in Him and trust Him that somehow...this is part of His plan.

There is nothing left for me to try. Nothing I haven’t done. I work 14-16 hour days as a carpenter, hoping to scrape together enough to move my daughter and I to a new town that promises a new start. I need to succeed this time. She needs me to succeed. I need a place to lay my head.

I need a home.

It’s day one of year seven.

I hope not many more of these days remain.

The Night Before Christmas (Homeless Daddy Version)

      This just sort of "happened" this morning. Sometimes this road is harder than others. Today is one of the hardest so far.                                           

                                                             The Night Before Christmas

                                                             (Homeless Daddy Version)

‘Twas three weeks before Christmas

And I’m down on my luck

I’m a poor, homeless, Daddy

Who lives in his truck

My sleeping bags zippered

Against the night air

Determined to make it

And stay off Welfare

By day I went working

With my belt full of tools

At night I did study

And I finished school

I busted my butt

And got that degree

But there still are no jobs

At least none for me

I make money for gas

And for food now and then

And to shower at the gym

So I don’t offend

But I can’t find a job

That would pay me enough

To rent a place for me

And the daughter I love

She lives with her mom

So at least she’s alright

But I miss her and think of her

All day and all night

She misses her Daddy

And I miss my girl

And I’ve tried everything

I can try in this world

I have to keep trying

And build a life we can live

Maybe some presents

On Christmas to give

My daughter she needs me

To try yet again

And prove that her daddy

Still knows how to win

When this is all over

On that wonderful day

She’ll remember her daddy

Loved her enough to stay

He loved her enough

To stay in this place

So at least every day

She could see his face

And she saw in his life

In the things he did bear

That he loved her enough

To always be there

I love her too much

To give up now

But I have to admit

It is wearing me down

Sometimes I wonder

How much more can I take

Is this some grand plan

Or a cosmic mistake?

Am I cursed by the Heavens

Or just down on my luck

‘Cause it’s three weeks til Christmas

And I still live in this truck

What Hopelessness Feels Like

     I am sitting, once again, in Panera. It’s where I go to disappear. This or the library. I can disappear in a booth in the back of the store, or behind a pile of books, and I can think, and put out a few dozen fruitless resumes.

     I want to write something brilliant. Something moving. Something inspiring or emotional or clever. But I can’t think of much of anything. My hands feel like they weigh a thousand pounds. I want to be invisible.

     I woke up at 4:30AM  today. I woke up in the back of a 1996 GMC Yukon. That’s why I woke up at 4:30. I’ve always been an early riser anyway, but I rise earlier still because I can only get about 5 hours of sleep before the pain in my back and hips wakes me up and it’s pointless to try to go back to sleep.

     I’m a morning person to begin with, so I don’t mind. I like being up early, going to the gym, getting things done, getting a jump on the day. But today I don’t feel like that. Today I can’t even marshal my thoughts into anything cogent. Not really. I want to dream. I should review my goals, but they have slipped from where they were five years ago, things like “Close 1 million dollars in loan volume this month”  has become: “Stay warm. Stay dry. Wash your clothes. Survive another day.”

     Yesterday, for the fourth time since July, I got turned down for a job. This time it wasn’t Obamacare. This time it wasn’t my age. It was something from 26 years ago. Something that never mattered before in the ten years I was a very successful mortgage banker. I spent the last ten weeks going back and forth with this company, answering their questions, providing documents, sending them reference letters.

     I sent them three reference letters that should have sealed my employment right then. One from a former bank examiner who was also a decorated Naval veteran and successful insurance company president and a bank president. One from a decorated marine who has preached the gospel for forty years. One from an Army veteran who was an assistant D.A. here, and who spoke eloquently about my honesty and character and integrity. In fact they all did. They all know me. This in addition to the four references from previous employers and managers who all said the same thing: “Craig is the most honest, forthright, hard working, character-driven man we have had working for us. He deserves this job.”

     But things happen, and in this economy, and in this society, sometimes you can’t overcome them.

     So now I am back at the drawing board, having wasted ten weeks where maybe I could have done something else. Maybe I could have made a plan B. At least I wouldn’t have been ten weeks into hopefulness, only to have the hope ripped out of my hands.

     I’m sitting here, trying to get the energy to start thinking about what to do next. Does that make sense? I’m trying to get the energy to think. I’m afraid to. I’m weary. It’s not going to work. It will only fail. It will get shot down again. What’s the use? The thoughts I refused to let in before, are in there now. Doubt. Fear. Shame. Loss. Hopelessness.

     I can’t start analyzing. I can’t take stock and see what I have to work with and figure out a way. A way to where? What do I have left? Intelligence? Grit? Determination? Character? Integrity? Talent? I have bucket loads of that stuff. And still, tonight I will sleep in a Yukon.

     I cannot express...not for all the words in the world...how this hurts. How much I miss my daughter. How badly I want to have a place where she can live with me like she wants to. How loudly the memories scream at me in the night. I see her when she was a baby. Then 2. Then 4 Then 10...the year I lost my house. Then 12. Now 15. What next? Will she graduate High School before I can rebuild this life of mine? Have I lost her trust for good this time? Is this the last disappointment...the one that makes her give up completely? I am trying to hide my tears as I wrote those words just now. Choking them down. Blinking them back. What if this time she gives up on believing in her daddy? Daddy. Her Daddy. What the hell kind of daddy am I?

     Sometimes I wish I had a drug problem, or an alcohol problem, or a gambling addiction. People seem to grasp that as a reason for homelessness more so than my story. “Really? You just lost your home and your career and you can’t find anything?”

  Yeah. Really.

     I have had people suggest jobs to me. Jobs I can’t even consider. Because of my commitment to helping take Morgan to and from school. And because my goal is to get a place of my own. And beds. And dishes. And furniture. And sheets and blankets, and pillows and pots and pans. After 5 years, I couldn’t keep paying rent on storage sheds full of things I wasn’t going to be using. I sold everything. Whatever I couldn’t sell I gave away. All I have left now...all I have from 6 years of home ownership...is a couple of boxes of keepsakes, mostly drawings from Morgan over the years, and my coffeemaker and a knife set. Everything else is gone.

     I need a career. I need a real job. Something that pays enough that after a month I could get a place. Not after four or five months of multiple part-time gigs at odd hours. I’m homeless. My access to showers and sleep are limited. It’s complicated in ways you haven’t thought of.

     I can’t even work up the energy to speak right now. I’m just crushed. I want to grab my daughter and wrap my arms around her and weep and beg her to forgive me for something I really didn’t do. “I didn’t sink this economy. I didn’t ruin the mortgage industry. I keep trying. I keep telling you to hold on, to believe just one more day, one more week, one more month. Please don’t give up. Please stop growing up. Please wait for me. Please don’t bear scars from this. I love you more than anything in this world. Please stop growing up. Please stop growing up. Please...I just want some time with you while you’re still young. Still my little girl. Still here.”

     Every day slips past. There is a five-year blank spot in my relationship with my daughter. A hole I will never fill. I hope she knows how much I love her. I hope she knows how much this hurts and how hard I’m trying.

     This is where I am this morning. It weighs a million pounds. It’s choking me. I need to find someplace where I can cry. Again.

     Then I need to come up with another plan. Something to put what remains of my hope in. I can’t quit. But sometimes it feels like I already have. 

Crumbling under the weight...why I'm so open with my story.

*I've never "dedicated" a blog article before. But I'm going to with this one. This article...and hopefully the awareness it stirs...is for those for whom this journey became too hard. The weight became too heavy, The night too dark...

...and the loneliness too lonely. You weren't alone after all...

My “Open Letter to Obama” has gotten some attention, that’s for certain. Attention from some in the media, thousands on Twitter and Facebook, and the blogosphere.

But one group of people has been paying attention to this letter, and subsequently to my plight, with particular interest. It’s the people who have been or currently are in, the same situation.

If you get a moment, go back to that article (An Open Letter To President Obama) Link is here: Open Letter and read the comments. These are real people. People who owned homes, and had dreams, and lived lives. They aren't lazy, or slackers, or stupid people. They weren't drug abusers or alcoholics. They probably weren't “In over their heads”  financially. One man has an advanced degree. One lady faced severe physical health issues.

Last night, I got a message from a friend on Twitter. Her brother in law committed suicide two years ago because of a situation almost exactly like mine. She told me that she wished he could have read my article, because who knows but that it might have stopped that tragedy.

I have, in the past, been accused of being too honest in my writing. People wonder why I lay my soul out there for public scrutiny. It’s because of notes like that. It’s because countless times over the past 6 years I have been writing and blogging and telling my story –first of being a single dad and the man’s side of a painful divorce, then of homelessness- and I have heard from the broken. I have collected hundreds of emails, and comments from men who didn't want their divorce. Who loved their wife and adored their family and wanted only to be a good husband and father. The overwhelming majority of the time a man finds my divorced dad’s blog, he uses some variant of the search “Divorced dad...missing my kids.” Most of the time these searches come at very early hours...2 or 3 AM. I imagine it’s a sleepless daddy who is so broken and so consumed with longing for his children that he types those words in a search engine just hoping that whatever bounces back brings him comfort.

Hearing of this dad who could not face another day in a world that saw him as a failure broke my heart. It broke my heart because it reveals a lot about this nation and it’s moral compass.

We live in a country now, where being a man means having the world on your shoulders. And if you stumble and fall, you are a failure. Zig Ziglar often said “Failure is an event...not a person.” But sadly...old Zig doesn't speak for this America. He did, for a long time men like Zig expressed the heart of this country. But we've become a jagged, fractured, disconnected collection of individuals and personal goals. We don’t live in neighborhoods anymore. We live in clusters of houses. Bunkers. Beautiful, well decorated, immaculately landscaped prisons of individuality and isolation. Cookouts and block parties are a thing of the past. And with them...friendship. With them, a caring, concerned sense of community and belonging.

When you separate everyone into little fractured piles of individuality and selfishness, when you pit race against race, class against class, and heritage against heritage...you get isolated people. You kill community. You destroy neighborhoods. We have a President right now who relishes in this. A man who has made it an art form to divide us against each other. White against black. Black against white. Conservative black against liberal black, against Hispanic, against Catholic, against left-handed Americans of German ancestry, born on Tuesdays between 1953 and 2011. He has us in 350 million phone booths, broken apart from each other.

When that happens...when a nation united becomes a nation untied...a place where 350 million people just live side by side without ever becoming real honest friends...then broken hearted dads who face hard times find no hope, and they kill themselves.

Let me tell you a little of how hard this is.

One time, fairly early in this homeless walk of mine, I went to my daughter’s school to have lunch with her. She was in the sixth grade. We had a blast together at her lunch table, as we always did. I was always in the habit of having lunch with her at least once a week as it was. But after being homeless, I did it a little more frequently when I could, because it gave us more time together.

I left her school and got in my car and drove off. About a mile down the road, I had to pull over. A wave of grief came over me and I knew a meltdown was coming. I pulled into a parking lot and broke down into deep, body-wracking sobs. Why? Because walking out of her school that day, the thought came over me in a terrible, dreadful flood: “What if one of her friends finds out I’m homeless? What if they start teasing her because of it?” It was more than my daddy’s heart could bear. I wept loudly for probably 15 minutes.

In the first few days after losing my home, a friend let Morgan and I use a loft apartment over their barn to stay in. It had a bathroom and shower and a living room. We slept on air mattresses. She was barely 10 years old. It was sort of an adventure to her and I don’t know that she quite comprehended what it meant when I said we weren't living at our house anymore.

We had a beautiful cat named Giacomo. Jackie had to be boarded at this point. She missed her cat, but she figured this was all temporary (as I did too) and so she figured that in a short time we’d have Jackie back, and our two Springer Spaniels, and we’d be a happy family again. She spent the weekend at a friends house during this time we stayed in the loft. When I picked her up, she explained that her friend’s mom had a yard sale that weekend and she had purchased two framed pictures. They were hand-drawn sketches of a cat. A cat that looked a lot like Giacomo. We got back to the loft and she propped them up against the wall at the head of her air mattress. When I saw them the next morning, I had to go outside because it so broke my heart and I didn't want her to see me crying. When I close my eyes I still see those two pictures, places carefully at the end of her mattress. Little framed reminders of the cat she was missing. I might never be able to forgive myself for my daughter not having her pets anymore.

If you want to know how this stuff hits a man...there you have it.

I have fallen to sleep in tears, in the middle of the winter (the coldest temps I have ever slept in, in the car, was about 17 degrees) and woken up with ice on my face. Every single day that goes by without a home for my daughter to come to is something I can literally feel escaping my grasp. I watch her growing up from afar...without a room of her own in a her dad’s house. If you want to know what will make a man feel like an abysmal failure...that is it. I have cried more tears than I could ever count. I have stopped making promises to her, because time and again, things happen like being frozen out of a job because of hiring moratoriums.

I don’t smile much. I have become thin-skinned and angry a lot. I used to be the class-clown.  Hearing about a man who broke down and couldn't take it anymore is no surprise. I’d be lying if I said I’ve never considered whether my daughter wouldn't be better off without her failed dad. That’s how it feels sometimes. I have received mostly wonderful, kind, encouraging comments. But I have also received comments from vicious, mean-spirited, unkind, unChristlike people who are convinced that somehow, someway this is all my fault, and all because I don’t want to work. I have worked since I took my first paper route at age 11. I have never been without a job. Never. Not. Ever. Until 2008.

Next week I turn 50. Maybe that’s got a lot to do with me not getting hired, I don’t know.

But this sure isn’t what I thought 50 would look like.

So if you read my blogs or hear me talking somewhere...don’t attack me for being blunt and honest. Re-read what I just wrote. Ask yourself if you knew how homelessness felt before reading it. Ask yourself if you found yourself in this situation, would it feel better knowing someone else was out there, walking this same path?

I write these things for you. So you know how this affects people in this situation. But I also write it for the others in this situation. Because maybe, had this story been out there two years ago, maybe my friend’s brother-in-law wouldn't have lost hope altogether. Maybe a family wouldn't be grieving still.

God bless us, every one.

I Don't Like Mondays...Actually I do (More thoughts from a homeless dad)

I'll make a confession...I don't mind Mondays.
I did when I was a kid. I hated leaving the weekend behind and getting back to school. But by High School I was more comfortable in school than at home, and so I didn't mind Mondays anymore.
In College I never minded Monday either. I went to a Christian College and so there were no Sunday evening parties to distract me or cause me pain.
As a professional -what seems like a lifetime ago now- I liked every other Monday. The weekends I had my daughter...that Monday was always bad. I hated when she left on Sunday night, and I spent half the next day in a stupor of pain and sadness. The weekends when I didn't have her I welcomed Monday because it meant that this weekend I would have her and the sooner it began the better.
My job as a mortgage broker wasn't hard, and so I didn't mind the office. I am an early riser by nature so I didn't care about getting up early.
I've never minded Mondays. Until now.
I am homeless. I am jobless. I see my friends griping about going to work and the age-old complaint about Mondays and I have to admit I am jealous. All I can do is go online, put out more resumes, check the job openings and feel the depressing emptiness of another dead-end job search settle on my shoulders.
This morning it hit me hard. I am a man. I am a dad. I fought hard for my Bachelors. I did the right thing and stayed in my daughter's life at great cost. And I can't even find a decent job.
And the President...the man charged with righting this ship...is busy helping the economy how? By Tweeting "#ROAR" to Katy Perry last night at the VMA's, that's how.
This morning he'll probably be busy planning his next golf outing. I'll be looking at the ten bucks I have in my pocket, and trying to figure out how to eat, get gas, and spend some time with my daughter all the while making it last until Friday, when I get my enormous $169 royalty check from Amazon. (Thank you to those who downloaded 71 copies of Remembering America in June!)
I wish I was in my office, complaining about bad coffee and doing what everyone else does...dreaming of Friday.
I wish my life looked normal. I wish I had made my daughter breakfast this morning, and then sat in the drop-off line smiling at the other parents who take something so innocuous for granted. I'd give anything to be "normal". If God said "Listen Kid...I'll make a deal with you. I'll send you a job but you can't ever write another word again. Not a book, not a blog, not a tweet. That's the deal, take it or leave it."   I'd take it. I want to make a living as a writer. I should be making a living as a writer, because I'm pretty good. But I am not refusing jobs because I believe my big break is around the corner. I'd trade my dreams for the ability to make my daughter's dreams come true. Writing is an escape for me. It's the only thing -besides my fatherhood- that I can look at with pride. It's a safe-haven for my soul in an otherwise unsafe world. But it's not a sacred cow.
I wish I was sitting in my car, driving to some realtor's office with some donuts and coffee and a handful of brochures, getting ready to sell them on the idea that I'm the guy they need for their customers. I really wish I was teaching school somewhere, making a difference in some kids lives, before they all turn into Miley Cyrus.
But I'm not. I'm trying not to cry, if you want to know the truth. I'm trying to figure this thing out for the 2 millionth time. I'm clinging desperately to a frayed rope and yelling for help.
And from the White House on down...I get no answer.

Random thoughts from a Homeless Dad

Yesterday a friend of mine told me how he had just watched the movie "Zero Dark Thirty" and how they showed some of the techniques used to extract the information used to find Bin Laden.
He said, "You know...the final breaking happens when they torture these guys for days or weeks or months and then they stop. They clean them up. Give them better food. Stop the sleep deprivation and whatever else they were doing. They let them gain a glimmer of hope that perhaps they have endured the worst nightmare they could imagine, then just when they start to grasp that hope...they start it all again."  He told me that according to the film, the breaking happens quickly after that, because they dropped their guard and began to hope. Once that faint glimmer was extinguished, their fight is all gone. Then he said something I'd been feeling since February but couldn't quite understand, he said, "You know...that's what happened to you. That's why this is so much harder this time. You endured that for four years, worked your butt off got your degree, wrote two books and started a business and got yourself in a house. Then the wheels came back off. It has to hurt worse than before...much worse"
He's right. It does. I didn't know about this being a tactic of inquisition...I just thought it was a particularly cruel twist. It hurts and it hurts like nothing I can describe.
     I picked up my daughter after school today. I do this every day to help her mom out. To be honest...it's something I look forward to. It makes me feel like I'm still her dad. Like I'm doing something. I spend about 20 minutes with her every afternoon, driving from school to her mom's house. She is usually burnt out after school so we don't talk as much as I'd like.  But I get to see her and for me, that's everything. I can't put into words how much I love my daughter. How much I wish I could get out of this nightmare and make something of a life for us again. How much I would give to hear her saying bedtime prayers, to cook breakfast for her, or to help her with her homework. This life of my hurts. It's painful. I'm past the point of dreaming dreams for myself anymore but I sure dream them for her. I dream of her being happy and fulfilled and becoming who she was put here to be. 15 years ago, when the doctor put her in my arms I felt the enormous weight of being the person who was supposed to make the way for her. It's her job to dream the dreams...it's mine to give them wings. And I can't.
I look at a $20 bill and try to figure a way to make it stretch into a tank of gas and some food, while our erstwhile president is partying like a rockstar this week. I am losing hope...and something had better change.
Meanwhile my daughter races toward adulthood and I am almost the invisible man in her world. She loves me and respects me and appreciates the sacrifice I made to remain here in Nashville and in her life. But she can't live on the intangible forever, and neither can I. Something has to break my way. More importantly...it has to break her way. Her dad needs to find the success he once knew, and he needs to find it now. Because time is racing by like the wind. I can't describe how I miss her and the five years we have lost. I lived in my car and tried to rebuild. I studied and got my degree. I wrote three books. I started a little business. And for all that, I am back to sleeping in the car again...and this time the shame and humiliation is killing me. It is literally draining life from my heart. It hurts to live like this. In ways I can't describe properly enough to do them justice. You will never know what it is to lose your career, and your home, and your family. Most people experience one of those...maybe two. But few ever experience all three together. I have. It hurts. Physically hurts...I feel like I am lugging around a 300 pound man strapped across my shoulders. The shame and humiliation is palpable. But the lack of hope is the worst thing. How do I get that back?
I just want my daughter to be happy. And I want to be there to see it. I'm losing the ability to imagine that day.