A Recount by Volunteer Jim Corrao
In 2017 I was per usual downtown LA at about 6:30am on a Saturday serving with four or so others in a weekly homeless ministry associated with our Catholic parish in Manhattan Beach, CA. The purpose of the ministry was simply to visit with and get to know those on the street, distribute to each person a modest breakfast bag of assorted cold food and beverage items, and offer whatever items of clothing and other items we carried helpful to their day to day existence. At that point whenever in town I’d been serving weekly in that ministry for about three years.
At that time of the day most living there on the streets were either just waking or still asleep in their tents. We had had to make our visits at that early hour before the police by law had to move them off the street temporarily so that the local businesses and residences could operate without disruption.
That morning a short, very obese, grimy, smelly, barefooted woman, with tattoos on her wide arms, large facial features, and a humped back had just awakened and walked up next to me, then standing very calmly, looking barely awake. I felt a small pang of discomfort and revulsion in her presence until realizing that we were there to visit with those such as her, whereby I could offer her any of the usual items we had. I asked her if she needed anything and she asked me whether we had any shoes. Knowing that we always had some shoes, I led her to one of our two or three autos that I knew had some shoes and showed her the few pairs we had with us. She picked out a pair of red high heel shoes and put them on and contentedly said they would do. She looked so ridiculous in those dress shoes that it was actually endearingly laughable and cute to see.
As she continued to stand calmly next to me I felt oddly comfortable standing there with her next to the car near a fellow volunteer, and I asked her who the male name on the tattoo on her arm was for. With little affect she said “That’s for an old boyfriend. He died in prison. He used to beat me up a lot.”. I’d never before heard anyone say such a thing without a hint of apparent discomfort or judgment, whether in-person or in media. It thoroughly disarmed me and I continued to comfortably ask her more questions, each answered by her with no emotion, embellishment, or judgement, in a matter of a few minutes or so as follows.
I asked her how long she’d lived on the street and she told me that she’d been there for nine years. I asked her why she was living on the street and she said “Because I was a prostitute.”. I asked why she’d been a prostitute and she said that a lady next door to her house had gotten her into it when she was 13 years old. I asked her why she’d been open to that and she said that she had been going from one foster home to another and didn’t like it. I asked her why she had been put in foster homes and she said that she had been taken out of the house of her parents because her father “… was having sex with me when I was seven.”. She finally showed very controlled emotion in saying that her native-American father, since deceased, was “very scary” with a violent temper who would hit people, showing appreciation for the fact that he was no longer around her and others so affected.
Immediately I felt a true sense of personal equality with her, just as with a close friend or family member, and so a great respect for and appreciation of her as a person just dealing with the day-to-day offerings and challenges of life, the same as I felt blessed to have for myself. I sensed a profound intelligence in her her calm, matter-of-fact openness and simplicity. We exchanged names, hers being Lisa Holly Rogers.
Over the following weeks we continued to see Lisa downtown, offering her the usual items, and she went out of her way to greet me before going on her way. She was always calm and upbeat. One day she spoke to Maria de Lourdes - the remarkable, devout Ecuadorian-born senior woman of our parish who with her husband, Jaime, had on their own initiated the ministry simply to get to know those on the street - in fluent Spanish as confirmed by Maria. Noting how well they seemed to communicate in a language I didn’t speak, I asked Lisa where she had learned to speak Spanish. She said that she had learned it on the street, which to me confirmed her intelligence. I asked her what she liked to do, knowing that on the street she had nothing to productively occupy her time, and she said she liked to knit. I told her I’d bring her some knitting supplies.
THE DUMPING
One particularly cold Saturday morning in March of 2018 the following occurred that I soon after wrote out at length as follows.
“This past Saturday at the end of our deliveries Lisa came by our two cars distraught in tears wailing like a child with saliva all over her mouth. I hadn’t thought with all she’d been through that anything could really upset her anymore, let alone do that. She looked like an inconsolable child.
She told me that while she was sleeping just then a man came by, stole her Social Security check, and dumped a pale of liquified feces and urine all over her. She was a mess.
I went to our bag of toiletries and helped her blow her nose and tried to wipe her up with disinfectant, and Maria quickly got a clean shirt on her, which helped a lot. Marie [Maria de Lourdes], her husband Jaime, and our other helper then all had to get home, leaving me there with Lisa.
Lisa cried that she had no money and clean anything and appealed to me to call the police. She [told me that she] wanted to leave downtown LA right then and for good. There was no way I could leave her there like that, on the street with the rats, needing a shower, with nothing but a clean T-shirt, soiled sweat pants, shoes, and Kleenex, and I couldn’t imagine what the police who would know she lives right there might be able to do for her.
I asked her many questions, which calmed her down, and I found out she was from Long Beach, had a grown married daughter who was a psychologist living some miles away, and had a brother who lived in Long Beach she hadn’t seen in 9 years. Her 88 year old mother had just died a few months ago.
She said she wanted to go to her brother, but I asked her what she would do if he didn’t want her there, and she said she would go to the mission nearby.
I drove her to Long Beach with all the windows open. I joked that as the Bible says “the last shall be first” and since she got that horrible stuff dumped all over her that she was now
“first”. She comfortably understood me. I told her that she didn’t seem to be very critical of people, and she nodded.
As she gave me directions along the half hour drive she was seeing familiar things she [apparently] hadn’t seen in 9 years commenting about this and that while telling me what lane to drive in, as does my wife Jo.
I was amazed at how free, relieved for her, and at home I felt getting Lisa away from where she had been so horribly treated and how dignified I saw her to be even smelling like that and still so much needing a shower. I knew I’d have to clean and disinfect the passenger seat as soon as I got home, which I later did with Jo’s tips.
Lisa gave me directions to a Long Beach Catholic (correction: Episcopal] Church where there were loads of homeless. We walked into the church grounds and there were many homeless being served breakfast on the patio. She so fit in, got in line for breakfast, and said she could shower there. I gave her a new sleeping bag Maria had put in my car earlier. We almost never had sleeping bags, but there it was.
She calmly took her tray of breakfast over to a table where some older homeless men were sitting, sat down like she was right at home, and I followed her to see what she next needed. She calmly said she was all set and that I could go, and I looked at her and asked if she needed anything else, and she said she was all set.
I looked straight into her eyes up close to be sure, and while flatly staring back at me she started crying uncontrollably without moving at all, still staring into my eyes, yet wanting and saying nothing. She seemed simply overcome. I held her arm, smiled, laughed, and said we sometimes laugh and cry right at the same time. It was very beautiful.
When I left everything felt surreal and I felt like I’d been given a wonderful gift in that experience. It seemed magical and I looked forward to sharing it with Jo, which I did, as I’m sharing it with you, but without all the details (Jo likes things quick and to the point).
I feel like I learned a lot in that little episode. That’s why I wanted to do those breakfast deliveries in the first place.
I still have to get those knitting needles and yarn to her if I can find her in the new location. It’s astonishing how much that is wonderful and beautiful I see in Lisa. That’s what really hit me. Boy, do we learn things.”
THE UPSHOT OF THE DUMPING EPISODE
The following week right after volunteering downtown I went back to the church in Long Beach to find Lisa and could not. A week or two after while volunteering I found her right back downtown LA in the usual place as if the episode had never occurred. Yet she was very grateful to me and offered me much more information, whereby I found that she had had a number of children while living on the street, one or more while in jail, each taken from her excepting her first child, a daughter - Ruby - whom Lisa’s mother had raised, then in her twenties, married, degreed, working as a psychologist, and living not far north of LA.
At the same it became apparent that in essence Lisa had no one in her life and no financial skills whatsoever, living hand to mouth in the odd abundance of the subsidized streets. She began to ask me for a few dollars when hungry and out of funds and I at times begrudgingly acquiesced in giving her ten or twenty dollars then instead just asking her what she needed whereby I would pick up a quick fast-food meal or some groceries or toiletries and bring them to her. I began upon occasion to take her to a fast food restaurant or a Denny’s or IHOP immediately after volunteering, letting the other volunteers and Jo know so as to keep everyone informed.
Lisa calmly told me that she has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, that she was claustrophobic, and that when confined to a hospital room would “bolt”, meaning get up and run away. She also told me that she really loved Jesus, Whom she said she didn’t know until she was about 20 years old.
One Saturday morning Lisa came up to me elated with good news telling me that one of the agencies had found a place for her within a block of where she stayed in tents or sleeping bags on the street in a newly-installed barracks-style portable mission building across from Union Station starting in a couple of months. She and I danced in celebration of that news in front of the other volunteers and homeless. I was relieved and happy for her. Once she was admitted, I went to visit her there and meet the young men and women that worked there so on various afternoons I could pick Lisa up to take her out and return her there.
FIRST HEALTH EMERGENCY
One day after volunteering I took Lisa to the nearby Burger King downtown and while she was eating she began to go into distress with pain in her chest. It quickly became so severe that I asked her if she knew the location of the nearest hospital, downtown, which she did and to which she then directed us. I took her in to the ER and they got her quickly into a room. The doctor with a nurse quickly called me into the room with her, confirming the seriousness of her condition. I called Jo and she instructed me to come home, which I did. That evening I received a call from the nurse telling me that they needed Lisa to stay overnight and accept surgery and medication for a deep infection in her chest threatening to become septic and that Lisa was too afraid to be willing to agree to that such that they wanted me to talk to her. I spoke with her and convinced her to accept the procedure and to stay the night. The next day I got word from the hospital that against their wishes Lisa had left the hospital, though not until after the procedure. The next Saturday after volunteering I saw Lisa in the usual location seeming to be past her health crisis.
CALL FROM THE PARK
One evening at about 10 am I received a call from Lisa whereby she calmly told me that - while then sitting in the park next to the mission where she was then assigned - a man was touching her, wanted sex from her, and wouldn’t stop. I calmly told her to tell him to stop, and she said she did but that he wouldn’t stop touching her. I asked her why she was in the park at such a late hour instead of in the mission, and she said that she was there as promised to a homeless “friend” to watch the man’s things so that they wouldn’t get stolen. I told Lisa that she was more important than any “things” and that she should immediately leave them and go into the mission, whereby she simply said “Ok” and hung up. About 10 minutes later she called again to tell me she was in the mission and to thank me for telling her to go there. That was that.
One day shortly thereafter while in my car on the way to a quick meal Lisa sadly told me that she had been to the doctor and been told by the doctor that she would not live long because of the severe infection in her breast, around that same time also informing me that she was 41 years of age. I told her very sternly that no one can tell anyone how long they will live, not even a doctor, as only God knows that, which really picked up her spirits. She told me that her birthday was coming up and I told her that I would take her to Denny’s on around that day to celebrate.
SECOND HEALTH EMERGENCY
When I arrived at the mission to pick up Lisa for her birthday meal I was greeted outside by a young female manager there who knew me, telling me that Lisa was in the hospital. I asked her which hospital and she said she didn’t know. I immediately called three hospitals and found that Lisa had been admitted into the ER at LA County (USC) Hospital, a good distance away from downtown LA, and has already in intensive care. I drove there immediately, went into intensive care, and was told Lisa was unconscious.
As I was not family, the medical staff couldn’t share any information with me, but they let me go in to see her there unconscious. I went out and told both the nurse and the doctor that I was certain I could tell them much more about Lisa and her situation than anyone else and that she had only her largely estranged daughter Ruby and her brother, whom she had not seen in nine years, left in her family, her mother having passed away at 88 years of age only a couple years earlier. To their credit, the doctor and staff, HIPAA rules aside, immediately opened up to me in sharing what they knew of Lisa’s condition and needs.
Knowing that she had no one else, I returned to see Lisa every few days whereby she remained unconscious. I was told by the doctor after a couple of visits that to survive Lisa would require a tracheotomy very soon, whereby the approval of her daughter Ruby was required, that they had tried to reach Ruby, but that they had not yet gotten a response. I then realized that - though I had never communicated with Ruby - Lisa had once given me her phone number. I texted a long message to Ruby telling her about her mother, my relationship with her mother, and the need for her approval for the operation. Ruby texted me back almost immediately saying that she had not known any of what I had shared, thanking me for the information, and assuring me that she would contact the hospital immediately and provide her approval. The next day when I arrived in the intensive care unit the nurse there happily informed me that Ruby had provided the needed approval and that Lisa had just then been brought into surgery to insert both a trachea tube in her neck and a feeding tube in her belly.
Over the coming days and weeks I continued to visit Lisa every few days or so finding that Lisa, though still unconscious in my witness, was showing signs of improvement to the staff. I was greatly impressed with the dedication of the doctors and the nurses in the intensive care unit. Each time I came by I found a nurse seated next to Lisa’s bed, always showing great concern for her with the understanding that she was never to be left alone. Each time the nurse was very welcoming of and informative to me in my coming by to sit with her and with Lisa. All this for a “street person” with no outside support and no health insurance whatsoever.
Lisa finally after a few weeks was able to recognize me, though not yet able to speak. I brought in a white board and markers and explained to her how to start giving signals to me and the staff. Eventually she became alert and could write out phrases. My wife Jo - an experienced nurse and nurse educator - then one day came in to visit Lisa with me. Lisa wrote on her whiteboard that she wanted to hear some Alan Jackson music, so I brought her a little portable CD player and an Alan Jackson CD. Lisa listened, smiled, and moved her arms and head to the music. I was then confident that she would recover.
Eventually, after about six or seven weeks, Lisa was moved to a regular hospital room in the next building. Within a week of that, on a Friday they once had her get up and walk around the bed. At that point I had counted that I had made about my 18th visit to LA County Hospital to see Lisa, and she had been in intensive care and in a regular room altogether for about eight weeks.
LISA BOLTS
A day or two later, late morning just before I was to leave for the hospital, I received a phone call from Lisa in distress telling me to get her out of the hospital. I told her I couldn’t do that, that she needed to stay there for some time more, and that I would be there in an hour to see her as planned.
When I arrived an hour later, a male nurse ran out to me to inform me that Lisa was gone. She had bolted. He said that a number of doctors and nurses had been there with Lisa to try to get her to stay but to no avail. She had fled the hospital with a tracheae tube and a feeding tube each hanging out of her. I immediately went back to the mission building many miles away to find out, not only that she had not returned there, but that in any event they no longer had a place there for her to stay. I went to where Lisa had most often been staying in a tent or sleeping bag on the street prior to being admitted into the mission and asked a fellow street person I knew whether he’d seen her and he pointed across the street. There I found Lisa laying on the sidewalk. I told her she needed to let me take her back to the hospital. She calmly said that she wasn’t going back to the hospital. I asked her if she wanted to live and she said “Yes”, whereby I told her that she would die if she didn’t go back to the hospital.
It began to rain and Lisa limply crawled into a tent used by a man who lived on the street, whom I also knew. I crawled into the tent with her, called Jo, and quickly explained the situation. I put Jo on speaker phone and Jo explained to Lisa that if she wanted to remain alive that she would need to return to the hospital. Lisa calmly told us that she was not going back to the hospital. I told Lisa that I would be back the next morning at 11am to take her to the hospital. I told a man who worked at the Catholic Mission Church across the street about her location and situation and asked if he could keep an eye out for her, perhaps the lamest of requests.
The next morning at 11am I found Lisa laying in the middle of the park adjacent to Union Station with little energy. I was wondering how she could there even just find and use a toilet and asked her. Barely moving, she pointed to past her feet where I saw fresh feces. I told her it was time for her to let me take her back to the hospital and she again calmly refused. The next day - a Saturday - I returned to the park and Lisa with Jaime Redin who ran the aforementioned homeless ministry, and he and I together tried again to persuade Lisa, still just laying there, to no avail. I got angry and demanded of Lisa that she tell me when she’d let me take her to the hospital, to which she responded that she’d go with me on Wednesday. I told her I’d be there then at 11am, a whopping four days later.
When I arrived at 11am that Wednesday Lisa was nowhere to be found. I went to that same, very reliable homeless person I had gone to before to find Lisa, and he told me that Lisa had left for Skid Row about a mile away to go into hiding. I drove to Skid Row - an ocean of blocks of tents of the homeless - and quickly found that there was no way I would be able to locate Lisa there. And so I went home. Calling a fellow Catholic friend, a retired nurse, Colleen Stuettgen, I told her how helpless I felt. She texted me about a prayer “The Litany of Surrender”, which I have since prayed daily.
The next Saturday serving downtown I was informed by another homeless person, a woman I and others who served with me knew well, that Lisa had been found dead, her body found in a dumpster next to Union Station. This news was then corroborated by another homeless person, a strong, fit, far-sighted, very kind and protective Chinese-American ex-con - Tony - whom I knew quite well and with whom at his earlier request I had with him shopped and gotten a Bible for him with large lettering. Tony had more than once told me his story in lament about once having been an enforcer for the Chinese mafia in LA. As sad as it was to hear this news concerning Lisa, I had little reason to be surprised. After getting home that day I composed and sent the following two texts to Lisa’s daughter, Ruby.
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"Ruby
I regret to have to inform you now that I just received a call from a person who knows your mother, a man named Tony Le, who used to live on the street and now lives in the housing where she had most recently been staying, that your mom was found unresponsive and having passed away near Union Station. Tony informed me that her body is now being held at the coroner at USC.
I will let her brother David know in the same manner as this. I very much loved your mom and am blessed and honored to have known her and been able to share with her as she shared with me. There is no doubt of her place in Heaven.
Please do not hesitate to let me know at any time if there is anything I can do for you, your family, or her in her memory.
Jim Corrao"
********* Same day 8:28pm
“Ruby
Here is the phone number of Tony Le who informed me about your mom.
[phone number]
Again, Tony lives in the barracks-style housing your mom had been staying in up until the time of her most recent hospital stay just over two months ago. There is no better or worse time to call Tony.
While your mom was long living on the street, Tony - himself homeless and mentally burdened - has acted much as a protective big brother or father to your mom as best as he has been able.
Jim”
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Shortly afterward Ruby texted me that she had checked with the morgue in LA and that there was no knowledge of Lisa’s body having been found or held anywhere. Soon after that, from the street, came a growing number of rumors that Lisa had been seen in various places in Skid Row. At first we didn’t know what to believe. And then we realized that if alive, only Lisa herself would be able to confirm for us that fact and her whereabouts. Some months went by with no news concerning Lisa.
Then one Saturday morning while downtown on the street administering I heard a loud voice from behind, yelling my name. I turned around and there she was, Lisa, coming at me with a big smile and open arms, to hug me. I hugged her, looked at her, and couldn’t believe how she looked. Her head was shaved clean, her weight was down a good amount, she was dressed in tight workout clothing, and she looked … better than I’d ever seen her look before. The other volunteers were there to witness it as well. We were so uplifted. I smilingly said to Lisa, “You should be dead!”. She responded heartily, saying “I know. I’m a miracle woman.”. I said “Yes! You are a miracle woman!”. I don’t know that I had ever before or have since experienced anything so unexpected and uplifting as to see Lisa not only alive, but looking as she did, and with such confidence and positive spirit.
And yet there still was that trachea tube hanging out of her neck and the feeding tube hanging out of her navel, still now months after bolting from the hospital. I asked her about that and she says that she’d gone into a clinic whereby they had found maggots in the trach tube and cleaned it out … cleaned it out … not removing the tube … but cleaning it out. Jesus Christ.
The following months led to ongoing concern and frustration regarding the need to get those tubes removed from a woman living on the street. The social services people I spoke with - including those who’d been assigned to Lisa - were like speaking into answering machines with no response. After yet another couple of months, having had enough, Jaime and Maria Redin, again who run the Saturday morning ministry, and I brought Lisa to the ER of LA County where Lisa had finally agreed to again stay a night as needed just long enough to have the tubes removed. I sat with Lisa at check-in and she got cold feet, telling me she would not stay over night there, then walking out. I followed her out angrily scolding her as she remained calm, the Redin’s completely there understanding my frustration displayed.
On a couple of occasions thereafter I met Lisa out on street to haul her and her many suitcases of clothing and blankets to a laundry mat to wash, dry, and repack them and get her and them back on the street. On one occasion she was in great pain, though happy and relieved at then having clean things. Then one Saturday morning she was there approaching me happily to show me that both tubes had been removed. Go figure. I could hardly believe it, but I was so relieved for her. No more maggots.
At times the ministry had supplied me with a tent and/or sleeping bag to give to Lisa, as they would often be stolen or lost. Finally, one day, just after Jo and I had decided to move to Florida, Lisa called me asking me to bring her a tent in that it was to be quite cold. I told her I’d meet her right after the usual Saturday run nearby to give it to her. But I couldn’t find her. After getting home I got a call from her asking me to bring it to her. I asked her why I couldn’t find her and she said she’d overslept. I was angry and asked her why I should bother to go all the way back downtown yet again. We went back and forth and she then just asked “Well, are you coming or not?”. I told her I’d see her in about and hour and left ready to give her both the tent and a good piece of my mind.
When I met her as instructed midday at the bus stop across from the hospital I took one look at her and started to laugh at myself, joyfully. Lisa looked so unassuming, upbeat, contented, appreciative of life, and downright cute sitting there in the colorful, sharp-looking, used ski jacket of mine still in great condition that I had once in passing given her for cold weather. With all the stuff she had had to sift through on the street day after day, she most assuredly had had no memory that I’d given that jacket to her, let alone that it had been mine. It was a wonder that she still had it. I told her I had been ready to give her a piece of my mind. She smiled at me knowingly, as I then realize that I had gotten just another lesson of lessons just from being around her. I then told her that Jo and I were soon to move to Florida, expecting that news to sadden her. She continued to smile confidently and knowingly at what she took to be good news for Jo and me. I asked her how she was and she said she was fine in that Jesus was there to look after her, as if to remind me of something I had forgotten. The table had yet again been turned. I was very odd, yet in a very good way. To date, now well over three years later, that is the last time I have seen Lisa Holly Rogers. She has since remained, as she had been, in my daily prayers. Anyone who says Lisa will ever die has yet another thing coming, that being the apparent moral of her ongoing story.
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