onelifetosave

If you wonder why there are so many homeless people, consider my situation. After the fiasco with the Salvation Army Centre of Hope, where they kicked me out because they screwed up, costing me a 42 day stay, they sent me to the Mission men’s shelter. It was now after August 1st, so they said I could stay there for the 42 days. Although not the best place in the world, at least I had a bed, meals and a place to shower. There was a tiny glimmer of hope.

When I returned to the centre from job searching I found my bed stripped. No idea why so I went to the office where they told me I couldn’t stay because I was on OW. When I told them again what the Centre of Hope told me, they said there was nothing they could do. They had received a call from OW late Friday afternoon telling them I was ineligible to stay, The guy at the desk said OW often does this just before closing on Fridays so there is no way to contact them. He told me to come back Monday morning and speak to a case worker. I told him I had nowhere to stay or eat for the weekend, but he said there was nothing he could do. This with the place half empty as well.

The strangest part in all of this is that I happened to start talking to a guy in exactly the same situation before we checked in. He had gone to the Centre of Hope for two days, but they told him he couldn’t stay either and sent him to the Mission. He told the Mission the exact same story I had, but he didn’t get kicked out. Makes no sense.

I just needed a little bit of help to get back on my feet and get off OW. I actually have a job interview on Monday morning, which I explained to the Mission. I asked what frame of mind did they think I would be in after sleeping in my car; not eating and not showering? Hardly the right preparation for a job interview. I have never been closer to giving up in my life. It all seems so hopeless.

I am at the end of my rope here. I could not be more desperate. I’m hungry. I’m lonely. I need a glimmer of hope that things will get better for me. Maybe let others you know about the site. I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you.

I called the Centre of Hope because I had nowhere to stay and no idea how they worked. I told the person who answered the phone that I had nowhere to stay, couldn’t find a place and that I was on Ontario Works and would be sleeping my car. He told me to come right down.

When I gave them all the information they asked for, they promptly showed me to my dorm and gave me the cook’s tour. I had no idea if or how I paid for this, but I thought it best not to ask the staff, deciding to ask someone staying there instead.
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When you fall down that ladder, one rung at a time, and finally slip off the bottom rung and fall on the ground, you believe, bad as it is, that you have finally hit rock bottom. There’s nowhere left to go, right?

My journey to the bottom has been full of challenges, some admittedly of my own doing, and others just plain bad luck. When I offered safe haven to the Panamanian family who were going to be out on the street for two weeks, how did I know it would end up taking me two weeks to get them out after calling the police, or that they would rip me off for everything I owned, leaving me virtually penniless in a foreign country? They never even paid me a cent of the eight hundred or so dollars I spent to feed their huge family. They left me with no choice but to return to Canada and, had it not been for the kind offer of a roof over my head from my cousin in Toronto, I have no idea what I could have done.

Life is what happens while you are making other plans, they say. By pure chance I met a woman on the internet who lived in London. We fell hopelessly in love, at least I thought so, and I ended up moving to London to be with her. Circumstances prevented us from living together, which I guess turned out to be the right thing. A few months into what I felt was the best relationship I had ever had in my life, and she spent the weekend with another man, who has now moved in with her, and I’m toast.
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Somewhat fatalistic, I know, but I thought I had best know the warning signs before I slip off into the diabetic coma. It’s been four weeks now without my meds, for the first time since being diagnosed way back in 2004. I was better off not knowing.

With the sole exception of cognitive problems, which, as far as I know, I don’t have, I have every other symptom. Yikes!
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As Sinatra sang it, “and now the end is near and I must face the final curtain”. For what seems like far too long now I have been fighting an uphill battle to just work hard and survive, but I just can’t catch a break. It if weren’t for my friend and colleague, Sieg Pedde, I would have been done in long ago. He brought my overdue car payments up to date, saving me from losing my car, which would have meant also losing my job, and he bailed me out last week when I had absolutely no money to live on. I managed to pay my rent and eat for a few more days and get a small emergency supply of my meds, which I had been off for two weeks, which is insane. Now I can’t pay this week’s rent; have little food; my meds are about the run out; my car payment is overdue and my car insurance payment will bounce in a few days. It’s all so incredibly hopeless. I can’t take the stress anymore.
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This may be my last post, and not by choice. This site was a last ditch effort to turn things around and it’s failed. I was desperately hoping that kind people would donate the price of a cup of coffee to help me get back on my feet, and then help others in situations like mine. Everyone wants to leave a legacy, just to know that their lives have not been a waste. It’s not a fifteen minutes of fame thing, but more to know you’ve made a difference while you were here on earth. I have always tried to “do the right thing”, but it seems that challenge after challenge has beaten me down over and over. I have lived by the age old Golden Rule of doing onto others as I hoped they would do to me, but these days everyone only looks out for themselves and cares little about their fellow man. Truly sad.

Today, after what seems like years of trying to overcome all the obstacles put in front of me, I find myself truly destitute. I am a diabetic and I survive only because of my regular medications. I have no money, so I haven’t had any medications now for several days. It is only a matter of time before this takes its toll on me. Already I feel the signs. My lips are tingling and I know my sugars are out of control. Diet is critical for diabetics, but I have no money for food. I am eating what scraps of food I have left, mainly bread and peanut butter, neither good for me. My car is about to be repossessed and I can’t pay my rent due on Tuesday. Stress is a killer for diabetics and mine is off the charts. I have not been without my medications since 2004, when I was first diagnosed, so I am entering uncharted waters here. I don’t know what will fail first or how bad it will be. I pray for a merciful end, but I believe I won’t be so lucky and I will go slowly and painfully. Certainly not how I thought my life would end.

In case you wonder how someone could die in a caring country like Canada, with such a great health care system, a last hope is our welfare system. If you qualify your meds are free, but I had been on the program several months ago. When I finally managed to get a job paying minimum wage in cash, I voluntarily claimed my income, even though thousands of people would not have, clearly abusing the system. For my honesty I was told I had been “overpaid”, which is ridiculous when you barely get enough to survive on in the first place. They have been hounding me to repay the overpayment, knowing I am not earning any money to survive, let alone pay them back. Even though without my meds I will die, there is no support from them to cover my medications. So much for a caring society.

I just wanted a chance to work hard and get back to a place where I supported myself and could live a normal life. It appears that is simply not possible. The odds are against me. All I can say is that I tried. Oh, how I’ve tried. I know I will not be missed. I would have given anything to just have had the opportunity to go on.

May you never find yourself all alone in the world, with no hope. It is a sad place to be.

Just when I think it can’t possibly get any worse, it does. That light at the end of the tunnel is, in fact, the oncoming train. At the moment I want to just not move and let the train put me out of my misery.

First, the woman of my dreams, the one I thought was forever and the one I moved to London for, lied to me and spent a weekend with another man in Ottawa, and with her daughter no less. Then she casually told me she was going to Toronto to spend the weekend with him, doing the obvious, and I even accidentally discovered she took her favorite sex toys with her to make it even worse. Surviving that weekend was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I was a mess! Then, to top it all off, while she’s making love to me every weekend (when she has enough wine in her to want me) she tells me he’s moving in with her, next week! I am toast, obviously. Nine months of treating her like a queen, and this is the thanks I get? Brutal!

Enough you say? Yes, it is, but on top of that I am given one day’s notice that the company I have been working for, barely eking out a living these last few months, is shutting down. I have no money. I haven’t paid my rent. I am out of my medications. I can’t make my car payment. I have nowhere to go. I can’t get unemployment or social assistance. Yes, how much can one man take?

No one cares. I will not be missed. I am as close to giving up as I have ever been in my life. The only decision I have left is how to go. I don’t want to hurt anyone in the process, so I’ll just go quietly, I guess. Sad.

It’s said that friends are the family we choose. From those friends we made in our first years of school, through those made working and through sports and various social situations and, of course, governed by where we live through our lives, literally hundreds of potential friends come into our lives. Some, like those made in high school or university, may stay friends for life. Others come into our lives for a reason or a season as they say. No matter what, the value of a true friend cannot be overstated. This is particularly true when we all face the challenges in our lives, sometimes more than we can handle. This is the time when a kind word or offering support can literally save a life.
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We’ve all seen the incredible response to the earthquake disaster in Haiti and, as a Canadian, I am proud that Canada has stepped up quickly and is playing such a major role. The world community has pledged billions of dollars to help rebuild the country and there is a movement to forgive the country’s massive debt of 984 million dollars. The scope of this disaster demands that governments write the checks quickly, which they have.

Add all the bank bail-outs and government money thrown at private industry, such as the automotive industry, and our heads are left swirling with million, billions and trillions and we have no real concept of how much money this really is.

This got me thinking about individuals who, like me, find themselves in the same situation, crippled by debt, job loss, family break-ups, drug addiction, abuse, wondering why they go on when there is so little hope. Many receive some form of government assistance, but this barely covers food and shelter. It does not provide any real hope for the future by helping people to turn their lives around or realize their dreams. Like me, many of these people also have great ideas to start businesses or develop products, but they have no capital to get started and they have no way to reach decision makers in existing companies to partner on their ideas.

So, the goal of this site remains the same, to save a life, one life at a time, but first we need to collectively raise the money to provide the help. My first goal is a million dollars, which I hope to increase to 10 million as soon as the one million has been raised. This is going to be a “grass roots” operation, with people donating what they can afford, as little as 99 cents if that’s all they can manage. This is the cost to register and this gets you on our mailing list. For $9.99 you get to register for help. For $99.99 you get to register for help, but you also get a chance to tell us your story on our member pages. Corporations, big and small, can register to become partners, with your presence on our site dictated by your donation. For $9,999 you can become a founding partner, with your logo, website links and copy included on everything we do. Even if you are just selling goods or services, for $9.99 you can be a vendor partner, with you link shown on our website. For $99.99 you can have a dedicated page with graphics, dynamic copy and links to your site. For $199.99 you can have your own mini site linked to our primary site, but with your own domain name search, registration, hosting and three page web design.

Let’s make this a world movement and show that we do care for our fellow man. This is not going to simply be a bail-out program for individuals. Tell us your story, but also include what you are going to do to turn your life around, how much money you need to do that, and what is your long term plan. There have been sites such as “pay off my credit card debt”, but this is not what we are. We want to help deserving individuals to help themselves. Please help to save a life, one life at a time.

When I opened my eyes today, for the first time in my life, I wished I had not woken up at all. With the holidays I have completely messed up my meds and it would have been merciful if this had just let me go peacefully. Instead I wake to tears in my eyes and a heavy heart, full of sadness and regrets.

I know I have certainly made some mistakes in my life, for which I am paying dearly, but I have always done my very best and never ever wanted to hurt anyone. Despite this, I know I have and I am truly sorry for any hurt I have caused anyone. It was never intentional. I seem to always be picking up the pieces of things gone wrong, just hoping that things will get better, but they only get worse. Tiny glimmers of hope are dashed by more and more challenges that come along.
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