Kevin

Content note: This story includes mention of witnessing attempted suicide. 

I grew up in Etobicoke in Ontario, and I lived in various places in the province before coming to Kingston. I had two brothers — 10 and 13 years older than me. They were good. One brother would pick on me sometimes, but that’s what brothers do. It’s funny because they didn’t realize that I was a lot faster than they were. He would try to catch me, and he did end up catching me, but the only reason was because I couldn’t stop laughing. Another time, he thought he was going to push me down two flights of stairs, but he hit every bad spot all the way down. I was athletic and especially liked softball and track and field. The one thing I couldn’t do was skate, which was funny as a Canadian. But the brother who picked on me the most had me as his best man. He’s a very beautiful man and takes care of his wife.

I worked in a homeless shelter for 30 years. I really liked it, and I was good at it. As time went on, I became a main worker there. I never got angry at people. Some people would push it, and some guys would go arguing with each other, but I would just raise my voice to get their attention and say, “I don’t care who did what, there’s going to be two empty beds.” That way, you don’t have to get too involved. I witnessed a lot of things in the job, but I wasn’t afraid because God had my back. I remember knocking on a door and going into this guy’s room, and you could tell by the bottle he had that he was trying to kill himself, so I called the ambulance and went to the hospital with him. I had some other jobs, but that was the one that I liked the best. If I could do it again, I would do it.

I do exercise classes at a community centre because it’s good to be active and we don’t take things seriously. I like to tell jokes and stuff, and they also have games and snacks, and all the workers are very nice people. If it was not for my health, I could run and jump and do everything, but things happen. Hundreds of thousands of people die every day, and most are elders. My daughters are both very nice and they encourage me to go to the gym. I do push-ups against the table and leg swings. I had one problem for a very long time, which was that I was struggling to get out of bed, but then I found an exercise for that.

I think it’s important to forgive. My father died in World War II, and my mother would push me, kick me, and put water in my face when I was trying to breathe. But I learned that my real father’s wife left him, and in those days a man couldn’t look after a child, so he met my mother. There are things that you don’t know. You never know what people have gone through. It’s important to forgive.