Over time, the first article inspired by my homeless man spawned five others.  These six articles together made up my first series ever published in the paper.  But, while I was pleased with the overall response to the series- I knew I could not lose sight of the bigger goals or struggle.  Yes, I now had more peacefully slept nights. Yes, I was being paid for something I loved doing.  And, yes, I had begun the journey to taking others and myself seriously.

But, as a working girl, I also had to think about building my resume.  Thankfully, I was long through with feeling guilty for displaying some ambition or evidence of a calculating mind.  I knew that at the end of it all I needed something which was more than a listed position I held at the paper.  I wasn’t certain about the form of this “something more”.  But, the nagging voice in the back of my head was on maximum volume now.  It urged me to find that something while I was so very motivated.

Luckily, before the nagging voice could drive me into an early grave, luck grinned at me again.  In came an invitation from the  United Nations Population Fund- Caribbean(UNFPA).  Regional journalists were being invited to submit relevant pieces for that year’s Caribbean Population Award. Several light bulbs cleared their throats in my head and proceeded to glimmer.

I sent in my entry- my six part series- The Other Antiguans. I later discovered myself a winner in the print category. I remember sitting at the UNFPA awards ceremony, just content to be there and largely oblivious to the fact that this was a competition or that we still had no idea who’d won what.  As I sat at the ceremony in Trinidad, I kept thinking the cheesiest thing over and over and over again: “It’s possible to matter and to change thinking through words.”

Being inspired to take yourself and others seriously is one thing. To actually believe and know that your words, and the stories begging to be told, are finding an audience- in the local net and beyond. Now, that is priceless.  And, I had my homeless man to thank for it all.

I still hadn’t found him- my homeless muse.  And so, one day, some time after the series had been published and the award won, I decided to call the so-called Crazy House again- just as a last attempt.  I still couldn’t remember his name or whether or not he had told it to me- he probably did.   And, the person on the other end of the telephone was appropriately hesitant to release any information.  But, after I described my man to her, her tongue loosened a bit.

He was dead.