25 December, 2006

Inside a crisis at crisis

Most of us when we were kids had this thing about Santa coming down the chimney with a sack full of goodies just for you. I always thought this was a bit far fetched even as a kid as we didn't have a chimney and I often wondered how the hell Santa left my presents but age has caught up with me and and the truth is out. Good times and good dreams have have come and gone at sporadic intervals. The only thing that has been constant is time. I am definitely older and a little wiser. So seeing people who have nothing not even a roof over their head at Christmas is sad but seeing them drown from life's problems is sadder. Christmas is a time most of us spend with families and friends but for some, it's a time of reflection and what could have been and sadness . Most of us have all hit low patches in our lives me included but just imagine having to suffer in silence for years and the only way to get away from it all was to run as far as you could but even that isn't far enough. With no hope of a future you turn to the bottle or drugs thus becoming another outcast. One of the socially excluded. Its that simple to become homeless and disillusioned.
At Christmas things only become more meaningless as memories are drowned by booze and drugs and the future well, what future? There isn't one, not one you can see anyway. It's funny but Christmas is a time of hope during the year there isn't much of that about.
All the volunteers at the crisis open Christmas give that just by standing around guarding doors and just talking to people that during the year would normally be ignored. Showing people that they are normal gives the first glimpses of hope and who knows what follows? maybe a merry Christmas.

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