Speaker 1: And radio presents a modern Christmas short story, A trash
can Christmas. It seemed like just yesterday when we are
all gathered around the tree listening to the radio play
Christmas elms randomly. The feeling of not knowing what was
next and sharing in sheer delight of hearing to one
you were waiting for to blast through that tidy radio
speaker was something special for me. It always was rocking
around a Christmas tree. Oh how I remember grabbing my
little five year old daughter's hand as we ridiculously danced
out of sync while giggling and laughing the whole time.
My son was just a newborn on that Christmas of
nineteen ninety nine. My wife made him look like Rudolph
the Red Nose Reindeer, but the cutest little outfit and
a red painted nose. When that song came blasted to
that little speaker on the wooden radio, she grabbed him
out of his crib and we all danced around a
Christmas tree while our little Rudolph cracked his first smile.
We were filled with optimism as we approached the end
of the century and the start of a new one.
The year two thousand, the New century a new decade.
It was just a week away. As our children grew up,
we shared and carried on our traditions, maintaining the magic
of Christmas in our hearts. We watched that Christmas Story
Marathon for hours, just like everybody else did. This is
one of the coolest things that you can do. Watch
that with your family. We would bake cookies while we
were smelling turkey and ham dinner bacon in the oven.
We watched any type of parade that was on the TV. Afterwards,
we would watch more Christmas movies in our pajamas while
decorating our genderbread houses. The fun exhaustion of Christmas Day
caused us all the drop to the flour one by one,
making it impossible for anyone to make it to their
own beds. I still feel like it was yesterday. Nowadays,
I frequently closed my eyes and reflect on those memories
I need to to survive. It's not what it used
to be. Reflecting on what happened is something I often do.
How can something good go so bad so fast? It's
something called choices, and when you make bad ones, the
consequences start to add up to the point where they
can't be ignored. I watched my daughter grow into a
beautiful woman. Although she had grown out of many of
our Christmas traditions, she still briefly participated in all of them.
She mostly wanted to continue to pretend for a little
bit longer. Since her little brother was a good five
years younger than her, she didn't want to give them
any indication that some of the things associated with the
most wonderful time of the year are no longer that wonderful.
We made every effort to create a family that was
both loving and happy, like most of y'all out there.
As our family grew older and time passed, we started
to learn things about each other that made it difficult
for us to concentrate on the things that made us happy,
the things that made us love each other. We discovered
a terrible truth that we were not perfect, and we
made a lot of mistakes. You know, when your children
are little, they're full of hope and they can do
nothing wrong in your eyes. It's so crazy they as
children view you as the parents with admiration and love
all the time. They can't wait to see you, they
can't wait to hug and kiss you. That time is
filled with so much innocence. If you're currently experiencing these
times that I'm describing, take advantage of it and do
all that you can to ensure it continues as much
as it can. Fast forward to twenty twenty, the year
that Christmas died for all of us. Thank you for
listening to our presentation of UA and Radio's a trash
Can Christmas. This is your narrator, CJ. Your time is valuable.
See we appreciate you taking the time to listen to
this show. After these brief messages, we will continue and
we hope you rejoin us on the other side of
this Break Media's presentation of a trash Can Christmas. Let's
go ahead and continue. A week prior to Christmas, I
received the phone call. The COVID nineteen outbreak had caused
a very difficult year for all. Mental health was a
struggle for many people. After that, there was a great
deal of distance between individuals in all ways possible. Society,
which was already struggling, started to crack even further. By
Little Angel, My beautiful daughter, had become addicted to pills
as her depression spiraled out of control and was not
helped by the events of twenty twenty seven seventeen is
a date I'll always remember. The feeling that I felt
when I received the news that she had taken her
own life using those same pills that were helping her
with daily activities, will always remained locked in my mind.
At the young age of twenty five, was so much
life ahead of her, she took it. We didn't celebrate
Christmas that year. The grief was overwhelming, the pain was intense,
but it was only the beginning. We all experienced a
form of survivor's guilt. We all thought we could have
done something better or different, just to let her know
that we were here for her and that we loved
her very much. I know we told her as much
as possible, but unfortunately it just wasn't enough. My son
was twenty years old and this had a tremendous effect
on him. For obvious reasons. We were all struggling as
we all started to notice those things that bothered us
about each other. It didn't help that we had spent
all those months in quarantine prior to my daughter untimely death.
The memories we had together and the memories of those
beautiful Christmases were fading and fading. Quickly. My wife and
my son blamed me for my daughter's suicide. As a
truck driver, I frequently went on interstinate deliveries. My family
relied on me to provide for them as they should.
Of course, the life of a truck driver, though, can
be extremely exhausting, as eighteen hours a day with little
or no sleep is very common. As I was advanced
in my middle age, it became harder for me to
continue to be a truck driver. I couldn't physically do
it anymore, so I started enlisting in the help of
an old friend. That old friend's name cocaine. The coke
provided me with the energy I needed to overcome my exhaustion,
but the addiction caused me to become distant from those
around me, as I tried desperately to hide it from them.
My marriage and relationship with my kids were already strained
prior to the shutdown of twenty twenty, but when we
were all forced to be home inside and just be
around each other, it was easier for all my demons
to be put on a table for my family to see.
I loved them and I just wanted to provide for them,
but I needed the drugs to do so, since I
was the one with the obvious weakness of addiction. My
wife directly blamed me for our little girl taking her life.
My son followed her lead and refused to talk to me.
I didn't harbor any anger towards them. I had nothing
but love for them, but they shouldn't blame me for
my little girl's death. Because I already was blaming myself.
I didn't even want to continue in any way, shape
or form. I started taking the drugs heavy to the
extent I lost everything. I crossed my truck on an
interstate delivery and then tested positive for drugs. They stripped
me of my license and placed me on probation. My
wife already had planned to divorce me, and when this happened,
she saw this as the last straw, and by Christmas
of twenty twenty one, the divorce was official, and on
top of that, I was thrown out of our home
while I owned it. I lived in my truck. Partying
with my friends and crashing with random women was what
I was doing on the regular. I had lost everything
I loved, so I was no longer worried what was
going to happen to me if I made any type
of money, it was because I'd let my truck to
other truckers. Any type of money I got, I would
immediately spend it on drugs. Then it happened. Shortly after
the calendar year turned twenty twenty four. I woke up
on the corner of Brooklyn and Maine as I adjusted
to my new home on the concrete streets. All right, everyone,
we're going to take one more quick break as you
are listening to UA and Radio's presentation of a trash
Can Christmas. Before we get to those messages, I wanted
to share some hard numbers with you. Suicides began to
rise in twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, would
twenty two being the highest suicide rate ever in the
United States. The federal government has recognized the mounting mental
health crisis and has established many resources to help those
who are struggling. If you know anyone, please look into
these resources and do your part to help. Also, the
Department of Housing and Urban Development counted over six hundred
and fifty thousand homeless people in twenty twenty three. The
calendar year of twenty three saw the biggest increase in
homelessness since two thousand and seven. All right, stay with
us past this one break and the story will continue
and conclude. See you after these messages and maybe this
presentation of a trash can Christmas. Let's go ahead and
continue your story. I would often pass by homeless people
and wonder how it happened to them. I always blended
on the drugs, as I figured once the addiction grew
out of total control, they ended up on the street.
They probably started to trade whatever they had to get
their high until there was nothing laughed. I do imagine
that a large number of homeless individuals do end up
without a home because of drug addiction. I mean, hell,
that's why I'm out here. But there were other factors.
One thing I never thought would be possible was as
I was started my downward spiral because of my addiction
to cocaine, I lost the support of my family, and
I lost it rather quickly. You see, our family broke
apart shortly before our daughter's suicide. We had stopped communicating,
we stopped tolerating each other, and we slowly stopped caring.
We got selfish and only thought about what made us
feel good. That was me included, But it wasn't just me.
Then when adversity hit, we turned on each other quickly
because it made us feel bad her to blame anyone
else but herself. I would imagine this happens quite frequently,
because nowadays adversity hits more frequent than ever. Since I've
been on the street at the start of this year,
I've had a lot of time to think. You know,
my wife, she used to take showers that would exceed
forty five minutes. You know how I know this because
I timed her. I was so worried about the water
bill that I blamed her extra long showers for me
having to spend more money. Short of showers didn't help.
But the water bills are always high, and it was
for several other reasons. Also, our finances were just out
of control in general, and it wasn't because of a
forty five minute shower. If I had it to do
all over again, I said nothing about the showers. I
haven't had a shower go over five minutes all year.
It would be so good to take a long shower
like that. I usually have to jump into a running
fountain in front of the bank building. I wait till
the evening. Security guys on duty because he's the only
one stopping me from being clean or dirty, and he
doesn't really care to think that I was complaining about
my wife taking a shower. I would do anything for
a forty five minute shower. Right now just blows my
mind that I couldn't see it back then. It wasn't
just me, though she hated that I smoke cigarettes. We
would fight about that every day. I've had so much
time to think to ask this simple question. Why can't
we just accept each other's differences. Why can't we each
except that there are things that make us happy and
we're not trying to hurt anyone else with them. They
just make us happy. Why do we have to go
after something that somebody does that obviously makes them happy.
If I had it to do all over again, That's
what I would tell myself every night. Now, I have
plenty of time to think about it as I'm sleeping
on this hard concrete street. It's Christmas time. One good
date about it is that I have a front row
seat to the beautiful downtown holiday decorations. On top of that,
people are a little bit more generous when the holidays
are around, as they generally feel a little bit more
sorry for you. I've gotten more donations and free food
the last couple of weeks since Thanksgiving that I have
all year. I guess you can say positive thing about
this year and being homeless. It's made me appreciate Christmas again.
Well here's a downside. Though, it's Christmas Eve. Everybody is
with their family, so they're not worried about one broken
down homeless man. All of the good fortune of the
last few weeks abruptly comes to an end. On Christmas Eve.
There was hardly anyone out on the streets except other
homeless people. Of course. I went to the Goodwill to
see if they would be serving up any food, but
everyone was gone except for one guy named Peter. He
was still rummaging through the donations, trying to collect them
inside so he can go home. He was polite when
I asked if there was any food, I mean, he
politely told me no, but he didn't offer me up
a bag so he didn't have to go through it anymore.
I asked him if it was free, and he said yes.
I then took the bag with me because it might
contain something that I would be able to trade off
with another person on the street. For another item. That's
how we leverage things out there on the street. So
I was really grateful for this bag of free things.
I got to my portion of the street that I
called my corner and started going through the bag from
Goodwill that Peter was so nice to give me. Hey,
I thought to myself, I got multiple Christmas gifts tonight.
I can't complain. I pray to God now and I
was happy that he had blessed me with these gifts.
But I asked him if he could please send someone
down my way, they would now bless me with a
blanket and a meal. If that happened, this would be
the best Christmas I've had since twenty nineteen, when I
last spent it with my beautiful daughter. I pulled a
small boombox tight radio out of the bag. They didn't
have any batteries, but there were several toys that did,
so I took them out of each toy until I
had a battery match from a new entertainment system. I
aborted my attempts to Matt's batteries as I saw a
car drive up to a trash can up the block
from me. They threw several bags inside the can. The
couple appear to be arguing about how she's never satisfied,
and she then called them an asshole. I thought to myself,
if only they knew how bad things could get and
how quickly. Maybe he should try a little bit harder
to satisfy her, and maybe she should realize he's not
an asshole. Everybody's got to find their own way, though.
I guess tonight, though they're bickering, created another Christmas miracle
for me. I put my hand down inside the trash
can and pulled out two semi warm bags of the
colonel's chicken. There also was some mashed potatoes and biscuits.
Speaker 2: Terrace.
Speaker 1: No way this could be happening, I thought to myself.
I looked up to the sky and think the man
up there, because despite my situation, I still believe in him.
He didn't do this to me. I did this to myself.
I still didn't have a blanket and it was getting cold.
But yet another Christmas miracle. I realized the trash bag
the donations were in was super thick. I tossed what
I wasn't going to use of the items inside, and
kept what I was going to use in a separate pile.
Then proceeded to turn the dick trash bag into a jacket,
and let me tell you, it worked. I had my
Christmas meal from the trash can that that bickering couple
was so gracious to throw away. Kind of thought to myself,
maybe the couple didn't exist, and it was God coming
down to show me what I used to have and
why I lost it. But he still believed in me,
and he was going to take care of me with
the good meal from this trash can and some entertainment
from the bag of donations. After eating the majority of
the chicken, I then set up my radio. I tinkered
with it for a good amount of minutes. As I
was able to finally find the Christmas station we used
to listen to. I smiled as I thought about the
family I used to have and the happiness we used
to share. It used to be easy to ignore all
the petty things that weren't a big deal until we
made them. One thought about all the dancing together, my
son and his little cute off outfit, my daughter with
her big, beautiful smile, and my wife looking at me
with loving eyes. It's funny how you can take yourself
back if you allow it, and I'm going to allow
it because even though these aren't the best of conditions,
currently I am blessed with a good meal and more importantly,
a vessel to my memories. I put my hands together,
got on my knees, and thanked God for his generosity.
To night on Christmas Eve, when I opened my eyes
from the prayer, I saw a white flash in the distance.
It was late dark and code out here, so I
didn't think anyone would be out there. But I did
think about my daughter and how maybe she was that
white flash that I had just finished seeing, because she
loved the Colonel's chicken. And then it happened. The DJ
on the radio announced that he would be playing rocking
Around to Christmas Tree as I smiled bigger than I
had smiled in a long time, and tears of happiness
began to pour out of my eyes. Merry Christmas to
my dear family, even though I'm alone on these cold,
hard streets, I still love you no matter what. And
to my daughter up in heaven, I'll always remember you.
Merry Christmas. Thank you for spending some of your holidays
with us. Had given us a chance to present this
Christmas story to y'all please use it as a reminder
to take a moment to find something to appreciate in
your lif lives that you might not realize you're like.
Speaker 3: You have.
Speaker 4: This as your narrator, ce Chay and we presented a
trash can Christmas. Please don't forget your fellow brother and
sisters who are struggling out there. Please take the time
to notice and be kind because kindness is always ring.
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