Danialla

It's a beautiful thought, but you're right. It's much harder to walk than talk, especially on the streets where I live.

We had an incident recently. A "chatty" homeless woman was "bothering" another woman as she was boarding a bus, so she asked the bus driver to call the police to have her removed. The policeman tried to apprehend the homeless woman, but she panicked and managed to take his gun - killed the police officer. His fellow officers opened fire on her and shot her several times. Last I heard she was in critical condition.

Naturally, this woman was labeled a "deranged lunatic and cop killer" - a person not worthy of living.

Who was this woman? She was a woman suffering from epilepsy who lost her home, family turned their backs on her, and she could not find work. She slept on the floor of the subway station, and tended to be a little confused and irritable after having a seizure. From what I hear, that's normal for people with epilepsy.

If someone could have taken the time to love that woman for just a few minutes, they would have discovered she needed medical help. They could have talked with her and calmed her fears. Instead, a police officer is dead and his family is grieving, four other officers have to live with the knowledge they shot a defenseless woman suffering from epilepsy, and the chatty homeless woman is now facing the death penalty for shooting a police officer.

There is a good chance that I will be left homeless and alone on those streets. To people who don't know me, my illness (amyloidosis) makes me look like I'm drunk and possibly crazy. Most likely, I'll be mumbling due to amyloid infiltration in my vocal chords, my gait will be uneven due to neuropathy and ataxia, my arms might also be flailing due to ataxia and blindness. With the way homeless people are treated out here on the streets, I wouldn't stand a chance of finding someone strong enough to "love" me as I am. I doubt I would fare any better as a homeless stranger in any other town either.

Maybe by the time I'm out there alone on the streets of Chicago, more people will ponder your thoughts on love a little deeper.