There are Hancocks all around us
The director of Hannah’s Place Emergency Shelter at Siloam Mission is Wayne Smith. In a recent conversation, Wayne recounted a poignant scene from a Will Smith movie that was out a few years ago.
Smith starred in an action-packed comedy as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living and misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favour with the public. A publicist puts the Hancock character through a makeover. As a result, his life and reputation rise from the ashes. Then the character meets a woman, played by Charlize Theron, with similar powers to his and the key to his secret past.
The scene Wayne was referring to involved Hancock waking up in a Miami hospital emergency room with a fractured skull. He has no memory of his past or of his own identity. The traumatic incident had apparently changed him into a superhero.
As Hancock said, “… When I woke up, I was changed. The hospital nurse tried to put a needle in my arm and it just broke against my skin and then my skull healed, like, in an hour. Doctors were astounded — and um, they wanted to know my story.”
The problem, of course, is Hancock couldn’t tell them because he didn’t know who he was. The only thing he had in his pocket was bubble gum and two movie tickets.
No ID. Nothing.
Hancock relates, “I went to sign out and the nurse asked me for my John Hancock. So I actually thought that’s who I was. Gotta wonder, though … what kind of bastard must I have been that nobody was here to claim me?”
Nobody was here to claim me. That’s the line that got to Wayne. I instantly made the connection myself.
Wayne could retell thousands of stories involving the lives of individuals who have stayed at Hannah’s Place Emergency Shelter. What haunts him as the nightly routine unfolds is seeing the number of lonely people whom nobody has claimed.
He looks into the eyes of people who don’t have a home. It might be a 72-year-old grandmother. It might be a man who had a career and a family, but whose children have grown indifferent to him and his life partner has died.
Nobody has claimed them.
It might be a woman with schizophrenia or some other mental illness. It might be an older patron who has burned all his bridges. Perhaps he’s had 15 jobs, has tried and failed until there’s nothing left.
Nobody has claimed them.
It might be those people who get up early and walk to a temp agency for one more attempt at some kind of job. They walk for ages to get there, only to be turned away. They survive the day to return to the shelter.
Nobody has claimed them.
I’ve heard Wayne say more than once that if he had one last charge to make in life — and if he was asked whom he’d like to take with him on that charge — he’d point to those people lining up for the shelter.
Those of us at Siloam Mission agree. They’re the most resilient people in the world.
–Larry Updike is the senior communications and advocacy officer for Siloam Mission.
