Stephenie and Daniel "Being Selfless"

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RANDY BACON

Stephanie's Words

I was born and raised here in Springfield. Right now I’m homeless.  I have been for awhile.  I just really was never made to do it on my own.  I went from my Mom to my husband to my boyfriend and then to another boyfriend.  I’ve only had three serious relationships in my life. Addiction probably has a lot to do with that.

Before I met Daniel, I didn’t know about any resources.  I was homeless and I just had no place. I didn’t know how to get the resources. If you have a caseworker of any kind, they can help you.  I’m still stuck in limbo.  Stuff that I need to get done.  Stuff like - I’ve made a couple of appointments with Burrell for my mental evaluations.  But how do you help with procrastination?  If I could just get help with that first step, procrastination, all the other steps would be fine. It’s just human nature.  I really have no access to healthcare - I just go to the emergency room.  They’ve been trying to get me a doctor - I have a chronic illness - I’m supposed to be taking classes.  They’ve had to hospitalize me twice because it’s gotten that bad.  And if I’d been going to my classes, it wouldn’t have gotten that bad.  Staying in Mt. Vernon, it’s hard to get to the resources here in Springfield. Sometimes I just don’t feel good. Just getting to lunch is too much. I have to walk or ride my bike and either one of them takes a toll on me.  To just go get lunch, let alone all of the appointments I have that day.

Right now I’m staying in the woods out by Mt. Vernon. The hardest part about being homeless is just having a place. Getting run off from one place to another.  I’m just waiting for it to happen again.  Except for right now, they said that we were good.  And bearing the weather, like when it gets really cold. Rain don’t bother me.  Cold bothers me.  When you get wet and you’re cold, that bothers me.  But having my stuff get wet is no problem with me.  It dries.  Everybody moved from the flood zone - the swamp lands.  And they act like it was just a disaster - I’m just like, I’ve had worse things than this happen in my life and got to keep my stuff.  I would have rather lost my stuff and not had what happened happen to me.  When I needed that stuff, I got that stuff.  I’ve lost stuff.  I’m 41 years old and I’ve lost so much stuff, I can’t even remember.  And it’s just stuff.  I’ve been through fires, flood - and we did what we could to save what pictures I had at the time - you know, of my little girls.  Pictures are bad when you lose those.  But those are material things, too.  No matter how many memories they bring.  It’s hard to let go.  I had all of my photos and I gave them to my oldest daughter.  I gave them to her and said “when you don’t think you can take care of these, move them onto the next person who can.”  I can’t take care of them… I can’t.  You need to make memories - that’s what you need to worry about.  The people that we love and cherish - I mean, there are people who have lost their children and you can’t get that back. Being selfless.  If you can’t see past your own nose, you’re not going to get very far with happiness.

Daniel's Words

My dream? My dream has been prepared for me already, Umm, my dreams consist of what God already has planned for me at some time, for what life is going to be about sometimes. I look at my dreams as being deja vu. Which deja vu to me is God already knows every hair on your head, what is going to even happen before it happens. So there you go, there's your dreams. So, I dreamed this life already, I've had this life. Umm, can I excel at it? Sure, why not? Do I want to? Yeah. That's what I'm suppose to be doing. Is there going to be something better than this? Oh yeah. But, my lifestyle has to change. And, as you have been foretold, there is a mansion and a kingdom that has been prepared for me already. So, there's my dream.