HOME BOUND

I saw Julio standing on the street corner shivering in the cold with a very short jacketwithout any zippers or buttons with sneakers treading through the deep snow covered streets. He was being harassed by the cold winters wind that bit harshly into his face making his teeth chatter.He stood in the front entrance of the Bodega with a white foam coffee cup asking for change from strange faces coming out.

He has been standing their for a few days and hours on end trying to make ends to feed the hunger.

He was still grieving inside from yesterdays funeral of his father but was back on the street not being given even a days time in the grieving process mourning inside while the plunk of change dropped in his cup held hand. He remembered the look on his fathers face  as he lay their in the coffin looking as he was sleeping the same look he had every night when he slipped pass him out of the house every night.This pain inside cut him like a knife more than the frigid cold did, and his soul was mortally wounded and numb.But Julio was standing there seemingly happy on the outside smiling as he put on his false mask to hide all of the harsh realities.Even as he stood there empty of every thing except for the hope there on the inside holding its own in the midst of his sorrowed suffering hearing his fathers words as he reaches in to memories of his fathers past to find a few moments of peace,  comfort, joy and strength in those memories.

He heard his fathers words fall back on his ear saying “ Family was every thing, when everyone else run out on you family steps in.”

He had run away only a week before angry only coming back to attend the funeral of his father

just long enough to view the body then he was gone again in a flash before any one of family could say anything to him. His father had died from The HIV Virus he had contracted from the needles he had placed in his arms years before. He would get clean for a while but the drugs had a way of always calling him back to the streets. The last two years he made a change and gave up the drugs entirely. He rejoiced and told everyone about the new commitment he had made to his family as a new man. Those were happy years as he took his family to new heights that they did not want for anything. His body slowly deteriorated they had slowly taken a toll on his life from all those years days without nourishment not eating just feeding his habit. He got help for his infectious disease but it was too little too late. He also remembered his fathers words of advice to him never use drugs and remember to take care of the body and the body will take care of you. His father gave him a book about HIV and made him promise to read it through which he did so much he could almost recite it.

.   He reminisced remembered those days going to church with his father, and visits to grandmas house after, not a care in the world. He remembered not having to worry about his next meal or where he was going to sleep, and his nice warm room with a bed. He remembered the story about the Prodigal son that he heard in Sunday school, and he felt bad because his rather would no longer be with him to take him to church. He stated to himself that if he ever went again he would always sit in the same seat that his father sat in. Then he thought about the fact again that he had run away from home in anger with only the clothes on his back.