I just finished painting her nails when I asked her "Can I write a story about you?".
"Oh wow", she says in her muffled and always slurred voice that you can only understand if you know Leighanne, "I'd love that". And she began to fill me in on some details of her life I never knew.
I've known her for nearly three years I think, though she has been living in my neighbourhood much longer then I have. But it wasn't until this past February that I fell in love with Leighanne. One night, probably a very cold one, as nights in February in Canada are like that, she came into the prayer room where I was nearing the end of my shift. After praying together for a moment she asked me "I want to go on the Journey before I die". This broke my heart, and marks the moment, as I said, that I fell in love with Leighanne. Let me set the scene for you. Leighanne is a 38 year old drug addict in the Downtown Eastside, though she looks more like 50. She was born a crack baby, what that means is her mother used while she was in the womb and was literally born addicted to drugs. After 8 years of abuse teaching her she was ugly, stupid and the only thing she was good for was sex, someone in Leighannes life (it is unsure if it is a relative or friend) tied a tourniquet around her arm and injected her with heroin. Yes, you read that right, at 8 years of age, Leighanne was forced to use heroin (not to mention also forced to have sex with men not twice, nor even three times, but 4 times her age). This was only the beginning and now 30 years later Leighanne is now a daily user who cannot control her muscles and cannot sit still, she has no teeth, full blown AIDS, Hep C, two kinds of cancer and according to doctors, should have been dead 2 months ago. Leighanne is also one of the most beautiful people I know. When she dresses up and pulls her hair back I am literally awestruck at her beauty. But her beauty goes so much deeper. She is so loving and has adopted the War College students, calling them her kids. She will often bring us gifts, and should there be any danger she is there defending and protecting us (and this is supposed to be our job). She makes sure to walk us home some nights and will help us with anything from lifting heavy items (though with her health and 90lb body she really shouldn't be) to cleaning tables.
The Journey is a 3 day retreat for women of the Downtown Eastside. And what a retreat it is. Women of the DTES are, for the most part, hurting and broken. Many of them are prostituted and sexually trafficked, beaten, bruised and raped. Others are suffering addictions and mental illnesses. When you are in the DTES you are surrounded with death, oppression, addiction, and poverty in it's most dire forms. The Journey offers women a serious getaway. It begins at lunch on a Tuesday where 10-20 ladies gather at the Great Room (appropriately named) and get chauffeured down to the ferry terminal where we then get on a boat that whisks us away to the Sunshine Coast (also appropriately named) for a 3 day 2 night, getaway of extravagance. You get off the boat and drive up the coastline for about 20 minutes until you pull into a long stretching driveway surrounded by trees on either side up to a very beautiful house. You walk into the house and you notice the 20 foot (maybe more maybe less, nonetheless it is big) ceiling in the great room. Followed by the lovely decor of fireplaces, stunning furniture, lovely artwork, and my favourite the use-any-time cappuccino machine. Upstairs are 5 or so bedrooms each painted different colors (and are known as the blue room, the yellow room, the pink room and so on) and two full bathrooms with the biggest bathtubs I have ever seen. Then you can walk up one more set of stairs and you get the the attic, my favourite room. Back downstairs there is an extravagant meal on the go, and the ladies (who, if they even get a meal on a normal day would have a peanut butter and jam sandwich, soup from a soup line, or if they are lucky maybe a slice of pizza from the corner store) get ready to enjoy a three course, home cooked, nutritious meal starting with a salad (and not just the kind with lettuce and dressing, but the kind with dried fruits, some variety of nut or seed, all displayed with a nice color contrast on fresh green lettuce) followed by some hearty entree, then a decedent desert. That's only day one. Day two offers spa treatments, hair cuts, art/music/photo therapy, and don't forget three more extravagant meals. The third day is just as great in showing the extravagant love of Christ. Basically there is no wonder to why Leighanne would like to experience a Journey before she died. Leighanne got to go on her own Journey last April.
Back to that cold February night in the prayer room, I realised something. I realised that yes, Leighanne could in fact die before the next Journey rolled around. Not the kind of die, as in we can all die at some point from a car accident or a lightning strike, but the kind of die where you're body is eating away at itself, the kind where you have full blown AIDS and catching the common cold is deadly, the kind of die when you are in chronic addiction and you're next high could be your last, the kind of die when your judgement is constantly impaired and you cannot control your muscles and walk out into traffic, the kind where you suffer from a mental illness and chronic pain and killing yourself seems like the better option. Leigannes kind of die and our kind of die are two very separate types.
Since this February night I have made it, or at least tried to make it, a priority to love Leighanne as best I can and to spend as much time as I can with her, as I know sooner or later (and let's face it, likely sooner) I won't get to see her everyday anymore. I'll forever remember the time she came with us to the Airport to pick up Megan, or the time she gave me Dominic sized hockey equipment to give him for his birthday (which he LOVED).
Leighanne has taught me a lot about love these past few months. I'd like to say Leighanne has made me a better person.
Today I enjoyed being with Leighanne greatly. We had tea together, I read part of the book I was reading aloud to her, and I as I was finishing painting her nails the brightest color red I had she said "I'd love that" in response to my question "Can I write a story about you".
Please if you are reading this, pray for Leighanne.
