Kadner: A Christmas gift from Frances

Follow @csteditorialsFrances had nothing to give anyone at Christmas. That was not unusual, since Frances had nothing for most of her life.

She lived in apartment buildings in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood in Chicago for many years, paying the rent with a meager check through the government called Supplemental Security Income. But that was never enough to cover her living expenses so she would eventually be evicted, tossed out in the street along with her possessions.

Frances was in her 70s when I met her. About to be homeless for the sixth or seventh time in her life, she came to the newspaper office seeking help to delay her eviction for a few weeks.

She had used the services of almost every social service agency and religious organization in Chicago at one time or another. They all knew her name. The cops at the local police district considered her a con woman because she would always stop paying her rent a month or so before her lease ran out.

“I save that money so I can pay the rent on a new home,” Frances told me. “The landlords always demand a security deposit in advance. They never give it back. I don’t have that kind of money to spend on security deposits. I don’t think that’s fair.”

Frances lived by her own rules. As far as I could tell, all of her family members had died by the time she was 50 or so. She had held a few jobs for short periods of time, but mostly she had lived with family until they were gone.

When asked why she didn’t live in a homeless shelter, or government housing, she would become indignant.

“Have you seen those places? They’re dirty. They’re not safe. They’re full of rats. You wouldn’t live there. But because I don’t have money you think I should live there.”

Her check from the government was about $420 a month. Her rent in Garfield Ridge at the time was about $350.

I couldn’t understand how she had survived for as long as she did. Eventually, I learned her daily meals consisted of oat meal, hot dogs and baked beans and a sweet potato for dinner. For a rare treat she would have chicken wings.

She unplugged her refrigerator in the winter, choosing to hang her food out a second story window. She never used air conditioning in the summer. She hadn’t owned a phone in years and did not watch TV.

She read a daily newspaper at the public library, where she spent much of her time.

She wore a battered, blue all-weather coat that seemed inadequate for Chicago winters. Sometimes, people would try to help her out by offering to replace it, or actually buy her a warmer jacket. Frances would smile and thank them and never wear the thing.

“If people see me in a nice coat walking the street, they may think I have money and hit me in the head and rob me,” she explained one day. “And when people see me in this old coat, they stop to help me. Sometimes they drive me home and sometimes they take me to the store.”

Frances didn’t have anything you could call a luxury item. But she came to appreciate things the rest of us take for granted, or don’t see at all.

“Look at that tree,” she said one day. “It has two trunks that separate near the bottom. It is a very old tree. Don’t you wonder why it has the two trunks? It seems special to me.”

She had me drive her to an apartment building near 55th Street and Pulaski Road one day. “There’s something special there,” she said.

Carved into the brick facing of the building were large portraits of three monkeys. “See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil,” Frances said. “Wouldn’t life be better if we all were like that? People are always defaming me because I’m poor.”

Frances had nothing, but needed nothing she did not have. On the other hand, everyone she ever met received a wonderful gift from her … an opportunity to help another human being.

You can’t buy that in a store. The only place you can find it is in your heart.

Merry Christmas, from Frances.

Email: philkadner@gmail.com

Tweets by @csteditorials