“My mother’s dying wish was to be buried next to her parents in Waukegan, Illinois,” Richard says, gazing down on his weather-worn walking stick, now a cane due to failing health.

“No one else wanted to do that for her,” Richard explained. “They cremated her. I found her ashen remains thrown on a workbench at my brother’s house in Enterprise, Alabama.”

“No. I’m taking her home,” Richard says, determined, a stubborn tone to his voice. 

He did what he knew had to be done. Securing paperwork and a proper urn from the closest funeral home, he drove her remains across state lines. Alabama to Illinois. 

Arriving in his Mother’s small hometown just north of Chicago, he settled in at his Aunt Karen’s house. Together Richard and Karen laid his mom to rest, only the two of them side by side that Friday afternoon before the Sunday Memorial Day Service. According to Richard, it was the extended family arriving, filling the house with disrespectful infighting and unquenched family greed that made it so tricky staying there.

Before the funeral service that Sunday, Richard withdrew to Lyons Woods. He sought to clear his head and meditate in the gorgeous tree-dense park of spidering walking trails in the center of town. Wandering through sun and shadow, sifting through this turning point in his life and reflecting on what it meant to be in Waukegan, fulfilling his mom’s dying wish. Laying her to rest next to her parents. 

He went off-trail and found himself at the edge of the park and noticed a tree sucker root growing up and out of the side of a tree. Richard thought, “If I remove it, this will help save the tree, and I’ll have a walking stick.” So he walked back to his Aunt’s house, grabbed a bow saw off the garage wall, and went back out and cut the root off. 

Trusting in the perfection of nature’s creation, Richard stepped away with more than a stick that summer day 13 years ago. He discovered and fashioned a wooden companion to prop up his ailing body and spirits, helping him during the most bitter times and seeing him through the darkest of places a person can ever walk.

“It’s more than just a walking stick or cane, it’s like my mom and her hometown are here with me.”

I created this photo illustration for the Miami New Times newspaper in 1993. The feature story addressed the rise of gun violence against women by men on Valentine’s Day.
The story explained, through the use of datasets, that more women were killed by a gun Valentine’s day in Miami-Dade County than anywhere else in Florida.

Today Evelyn Augusto from “Scars that Define” talked with me on WIOX 91.3 FM about art activism and bringing awareness to end gun violence and recognizing the strength of its survivors.

I hangout with the guests of Friendship Park about two or three times a month. We sit and talk and sometimes they will ask, “Hey remember the photograph you took of me? Can I get another one? I was rolled last week.”

I give the guests a small black-and-white print after I photograph them. It’s a physical object, something from their life they can share with friends and family.

The problem is guests get robbed or “rolled” a lot, as often as once a month.

Imagine you wake up blinking the morning sun from your eyes, looking around where you lay on the ground and slowly realize in a panic everything is gone: drivers license, social security card, bus pass, school I.D., medications, cash and family photos all gone.

The sum of your progress and forward momentum, to get out and away from living outside, eclipsed by bad luck and the ugliness of greed.

Boxing your way through each day you know theft will happen again. What will you do? Do you give up and give in or do you fight on and persevere only to wake up to know, as you sit alone, hope could leave your hands once more.

John stood up and placed the worn bible he was reading on a small suitcase behind the backdrop. He slowly walked over to the library chair.

As he sat down and positioned himself, John’s lower back, neck and hands put his grueling work history on parade.

Concrete and heavy construction work busted him up pretty good. Endless years of hard labor grinding down his body against time, perseverance and the need for food, shelter and fun.

“You know the Psalms don’t seem like Psalms — they don’t even seem like poetry at all,” John says. “When you are all alone not much makes sense.”