We Call Her Belle
by Jeffrey Pierce

She was a faded southern belle, her beauty forgotten like a pond gone dry. Her face was tired and worn, creased by heavy lines, a brown paper bag crumpled one too many times. Pale blue eyes peered from cracked leather, a lifetime nearly forgotten flickering feebly in their depths.

As she stood outside the dirty convenience store, adding her purchase to her shopping cart home, pieces of her life would fall from the cart and land on the ground. Each time she bent and picked up the lost and found object, she would stand tall once more, the item returned to it's proper place, and carefully arrange her skirt to fall just so.

Even near the end of her life's journey, she was still a lady.

We came across her, Bri and I, while on a walk alone around our neighborhood. I tend to wander with my camera in hand, watching for new photos to present themselves to me. Belle caught my eye. There was something about her quiet dignity that said, "Being homeless is not the same as being desperate."

I'm a firm believer that being human should mean something more than bank accounts and pretty trinkets. Our interpersonal connections should not be made with the charactors portrayed by actors in film or on TV, not when we're surrounded by other human beings. I believe that each moment is sacred, that it unfolds for a reason, even if we aren't always conscious of why it's presented to us.

Which means Belle caught my eye for a reason.

Our first encounter with "Belle"

Bri and I crossed her path twice more on our walk. The second time, she had taken refuge in the shade of a building, escaping from the nearly 100 degree heat. It was then that I knew why we had met Belle.

"I'm going to run home," I told Bri. "We have some bottled water left over from our trip to Seattle and there are Clif Bars in our backpacking supplies."

Bri met my eyes, not even needing to nod in agreement. When she and I first met, we instantly realized that we share not only the same outlook on what life should be, but we share the same heart.

We hurried home. I found a cloth shopping bag, filling it with a half-dozen food bars and four bottles of water. Two apples and a handful of fruit snacks completed the package and Bri and I hurried out into the heat once more.

When we reached the shade where we had last seen the old homeless woman, Belle was gone. We hurried down the street, not sure where she had gone, but intent on finding Belle nonetheless. I turned to Bri, joking, "Who would believe that, on a night without children, two parents would spend their time tracking down a homeless woman to give her food and water." Bri laughed. It's what happens when you share a heart.

We turned a corner, finding Belle wandering down the sidewalk, searching the pavement for forgotten coins. She stooped, finding a dime, and then reached a little farther, picking up a discarded cup lid and straw to throw away. This old homeless woman picking up trash was a reminder that pride doesn't stop when your chips were down, that it doesn't stop with yourself, but that it extends to your community as well.

Bri and I slowed as we neared her, waiting for Belle to turn and meet our eyes, not wanting to surprise her. She did look up at our approach at last. Seeing Bri first, Belle turned her eyes submissively to the ground.

"Excuse me," the old woman said with quiet politeness, stepping backward to move her cart out of the center of the sidewalk and out of our way.

"This is for you," I offered, setting the cloth shopping bag atop her cart, Belle hurrying over, a focused inquisitiveness to her gaze. "It's not much," I explained. "Just some bottled water and a little food. But we thought you could use it."

There are moments in your life you'll never forget. A new born baby's first cry. The sound of the crowd roaring as your team wins the big game. Where you were when a moment of history took place.

Belle's response to our gift was one of those moments.

Belle instantly looked away, overcome with emotion, the lips of her toothless mouth pursing as she tried not to cry. "God bless you," she whispered, her voice cracking, her words trembling and heartfelt. "Thank you." And she turned to hurry away with her cart.

Bri and I turned toward home. Belle's gratitude was so palpable we were humbled by the emotion she felt toward our simple gift. I clenched my chin, trying to hold myself together as we retraced our steps; Bri openly cried.

The rules are simple. When you see a need, you meet it. You don't give from what you need to survive; you give from your surplus. All of us have one. Our family lives inches above the poverty line, yet there is always something we can offer. We literally didn't have any money to offer Belle, but we had time, a couple of bottles of water, a handful of portable food, and one more cloth shopping bag than we truly needed.

Belle could have been anyone. It was clear that she was at the convenience store because they're known to carry more varieties of beer than anyone in the area - the large, inexpensive variety that homeless people purchase and which Belle can be seen holding in the photograph. As we approached her before giving her our gift, we could also see that Belle had become invisible. People didn't see her. She slipped through life unseen, passed the fancy automobiles that were parked along the road, searching beneath the parking meters for dimes that weren't worth enough for the drivers to pick up. When we encountered her, Belle realized we could see her and her first instinct was to make herself small, moving out of the way and becoming invisible once more.

It's easy to say that Belle wasn’t always an old homeless woman, looking for a quiet place in the shade to escape into her drink. Belle was once that baby's first cry. She remembers where she was at great moments in history that occurred over the decades of her life. She loved and was loved in return; she won and lost; she dreamed of a better life. Belle's path led her from a place far away, her southern accent still hinted at in her whispered, "God bless you," her upbringing still that of a lady.

But even that is the easy way out.

Belle is still that woman – every moment of that life’s journey. She was once new and pink, thrust into this world in a full-bodied cry that brought tears of joy to someone's eyes. She wore pigtails and ran through the grass chasing fireflies. She met adversity and through pride or simply a lack of help, she fell.

Belle fell. And we let her fall. We do it every day. There are so many people around us who are struggling, who simply need a chance to catch themselves, a steadying hand that helps them regain their balance.

And we ignore them.

How many people are in our world, not in this globe we refer to as Earth, but in that space that we cross paths with every day who are invisible because we choose not to see them? I'm not referring to the homeless, but those around us - many of them people we know and call "friends" or "family" - who are struggling. Maybe it's rent and a house payment that they can't meet or a job that they can't find. Maybe they don't have food for the table or children that don't have shoes. Maybe they’re hurting and need a friendly shoulder, somewhere to let down their walls where they're safe and can cry. Maybe they need direction and perspective in an area where you have some expertise or experience. Maybe their world is falling apart and you can cook them a meal while they put it back together. Maybe they’re sick and can't get to the store. Maybe they have a problem and you have a skill that you can teach or apply that will solve that problem or that will teach them how to solve it themselves.

It seems like a clichéd list, but even with our scarce reserves, Bri and I have reached out to help all we could in each and every one of those situations. We live paycheck to paycheck, existing on trust and faith as much or more than we do on dollars and cents. I can guarantee you, from personal experience, if you give simply from what you have - not what you need, but what you have - you will always have enough. Always. But what's more, is that you will also give a person what they needed when they didn't have enough to make it through.

We talk about wanting to live in a different world, one filled with love and compassion, where people have more value to us than what we place on dollars and pretty things. The creation of that world must begin with each of us. We need to see each other. We need to give from what we have so that others have what they need. It’s the only way we’ll ever live in the world we want to create for ourselves, our children, and future generations. If we don't take the chance and reach out first, to simply give from our store of “more than we need,” no one ever will.

Thoughts? Comments? You can contact us at connect@oldways.com or interact with Jeffrey, Briana, and the Old Ways community on our Facebook page.

Originally published in Old Ways on August 15, 2010