Story-A-Day #373: Graveyard Ernie

GRAVEYARD ERNIE

It is a decrepit old church on the south-western coast of England.  If you were to put it in a line of similar churches, you would be hard pressed to pick it out of that line.  So for all intents and purposes, this is just another quaint church in a small English seaside town, despite the slight lean to the tower that comes from too many years on a shifting seaside terrain.

Unlike some other churches of its stature, however, this one holds a secret.  In the graveyard that fills its rear gardens, there is a hedgerow.  Beneath that hedgerow, for those who are astute and observant enough, you might notice what looks like a collection of trash.  You would not be remiss to think that it had been blown there by the tidal breezes off the channel.  If that were what you thought though, then you would not be looking close enough.

Beneath that row of hedges is a home.  Sure it is made of the tattered remains of tarpaulin, cardboard boxes, and other seemingly innocuous items, but that is in fact a home, and the home to a bedraggled, but brilliant man at that.

At first glance, most people would walk the other way.  He tends to be filthy, his curly hair, long and greasy, not unlike the beard that clings to his jawline.

His tendency to mutter to himself tends to be another trigger for most people.  Most people cross the road when they see him coming.  The thing is, as with all things in life, there is often more to any situation than meets the eye.

Don't look at Graveyard Ernie as a homeless guy.  He is much more than that.  Sure, it is easy to lump people into simple definitions based on appearance, intellect, and position in society.  That's something we can all do with a simple glance.

It is much harder to actually get to know who a person really is.  Ernie was obviously not always a homeless guy who lived under a hedgerow in a graveyard.  There was a time when he was no different than you or me.

In all honesty, there is a good chance that he was once better than most of us.  Ernie's story is a private one, but it is one that resulted in him being where he is today.  We all make decisions in our lives, and we all experience events in our lives.  Those moments define us, just as they define Ernie.

That doesn't mean that Ernie is a lesser being than any of us, it simply means that Ernie has experienced things that have put him in a lesser place.

If anything, we need to go out of our way to make people like Ernie feel welcome and included; especially in a world they no longer understand.