Robert's story

For a class project at Millersville University, Sam was asked to create a form of art that exists online. Wanting to incorporate his passion for people, Sam chose to tell the stories of several clients at the Water Street Mission. Through his project, he said he hopes individuals will be “reminded of how fortunate they are to have what they have, and that they easily could have ended up like any of the people at the Water Street Mission.”

I walked into the library, a small space the size of a bedroom. Books on practical living, motivation and inspiration sat on the tables and lined the walls. Robert, 55, was comfortably seated on one of the couch chairs, legs crossed. His gaze on the book between his weathered hands was peaceful and meditative. His eyes lifted, meeting mine and we shook hands, introducing ourselves. There was something very honest about him that I could feel right away and knew I was going to love. The notebook I was using to record his story didn’t survive the meeting very long. It was pulling me away from being engaged in the conversation him and I were getting lost in.

Robert was raised in Baltimore and moved to South Carolina when he was in seventh grade. He graduated from a rough high school where fights and race riots were nothing out of the ordinary. “If you could survive, they passed you. I graduated high school and hadn’t learned a thing,” he told me. Robert was a big drummer, playing in both school bands and rock bands including Archie Belle and the Drells. He moved back to Baltimore and eventually to Pennsylvania where he started a drywall company.

The consequences of a few bad choices changed the route of Robert’s life in a dark way. When he began experimenting with hard drugs it was very occasional. Before he had the chance to take a step back and realize what he was getting into, his life had spun out of control. Life was no longer in his hands, but in the hands of the heroin that swiftly pulled him under. Heroin and crack dictated Robert’s life for years. When snorting no longer sufficed, the syringe came into play, and shooting up became a daily dependence simply to function. This threw into play another corkscrew; in 1981 Robert learned that he was HIV positive. The will to live was gone. “I figured ‘hey, I’ll be dead soon anyways, why stop now?’” he told me. After a long ten years passed and Robert was still alive, a light was starting to shine within him. He managed to quit using I.V. drugs, but was still tired of living life hanging by a thread. Three years ago, he fell upon the Water Street Mission, and they took him in with open arms. “I just wasn’t yet ready,” Robert said. He found himself back on the streets after relapsing. Then the result of one solid choice finally put his life back on a road to freedom from the sick cycle carousel of drugs and the emptiness that consumed him.

Robert was in the area and swung by the Water Street Mission to talk to Chuck Albright, shelter manager/intake worker. Chuck was a man Robert became close to through his first experience at the Mission. He just needed someone to talk to and confide in. Chuck of course asked him to come back and give freedom from his emptiness another try. Robert agreed to come back in about a week. “I remember that moment like it was yesterday” he said with a smile. “I had already planned where I was gonna get high that day.” And Chuck knew it. “No,” Chuck said. “If you’re doing this, you’re gonna do it right now.” That bit of persistence on Chuck’s part might have saved Robert’s life.

God can inevitably do some purely beautiful things and Robert’s life is a testament to just that. “Ninety-five percent of the people I used to do drugs with are all dead. They just couldn’t give it up,” Robert said. Almost thirty years have passed since he was diagnosed with AIDS, yet his medical condition is currently better than it has been in any of those years. Among his six children Victor, Tony, Kim, Ronetta, Targus, and Tina, not a single one of them have inherited the virus. “I had so much of the virus in me, I was taking twenty-two pills twice a day. Now I’m down to just two and better than I ever was with the virus.” Doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital are contacting him constantly trying to figure out how he is still alive. The virus in his body is currently ‘non detectable’.

It has been four months in the program, and things are going well. Normally there is heavy bigotry towards those suffering from AIDS, but the Mission didn’t hesitate to support him. He explained the Water Street Mission’s ministry as very open. There is a strong love here that is inevitably rooted in Christ. He went on to tell me how much he loves the Biblical Life Management class. “Nothing religious is forced, but is always available,” he told me. They want those in need to see the love of Jesus through the love the Mission gives. Robert has found a place to stay as he continues his journey, and he has found his home in Christ. I heard Robert’s whole life story, and in his 55 years, he has never had so much peace. The love of Jesus emanates from him.