Elephant Teardrops

This autobiographical wedge sets up readers for slices of the author's life while facing health/financial issues during homelessness. Donna writes, "I heard we are not our stories; yet, I became a part of mine - some anyway - without intention. History changed me more than once. Those past events hold hands with my soul." Since her days of briefly living in a township under South Africa's apartheid regime to the inhumanity of being homeless in America, readers will be tied closely to the author's vivid story-telling, beginning with the Prologue's dream sequence. Donna's homeless condition was not by choice or an experiment so professional jabber/questionable statistics are eliminated. Her circumstances beg the question of why there is a thinly-veiled prejudice against the dispossessed. They did not trigger the 2008 financial crash, stealing homes, jobs, farms, businesses, pensions and a belief in dreams. She specifies, "I am not alone in this endemic catastrophe which has varying levels of brutality, ranging from terrifying to unspeakable tragedy in other countries as well as the United States. On the other hand, when homeless I had a lot of luck - the kind needed by trauma survivors, victims of war or natural disasters, veterans, hungry children, the LGBT community, seniors, addicts, the mentally ill. I did experience my own impasses pertaining to prayer, faith and trust so luck was a welcome escort." The author relies on her poetic style of writing to thread snapshots of her own life into an unusual glimpse of a world depicting people readers would not recognize as indigent if standing next to them. The hidden homeless blend into any population of a town or city, which might ignore them too if their situation were recognizable. Nonfictional characters do not fit the societal stereotype one generally sees in mainstream media. The reader may conclude the homeless are not what you choose to believe. The notion "the homeless want to be homeless" is absurd. All too frequently being homeless comes alongside feelings of betrayal, abandonment; hopelessness and sadness so ingrained there can be no assigned definition. Throughout her passage the author acknowledges change is inevitable: she wants to know if the transformation will end in two weeks or ten years, indicating, "I may articulate the time frame is unimportant, but the assertion is inaccurate. Philosophical queries remain inescapable: Why am I here? Have I outlived my usefulness? Is there a reason for everything? I seldom get a fast response. Periodically, a paralyzing fear engulfs me. The grain of a mustard seed is not always sufficient." Nevertheless, Donna must take the mandatory journey to survive or perish. On the way, she ties an extraordinary past to her present, uncovering the inhumanity of homelessness, more of herself and the world.