Homeless

[buckee]

So many times we see the homeless, and wonder what their life story is, really all about. I know I do.

I see this man all the time, feeding the seagulls where my wife works. Next time I see him, I'll buy him a coffee and sit, and talk.

ONLINE FIRST: Columbus discovers joy of giving

By Elizabeth Hames - Comox Valley Record

Published: July 28, 2008 3:00 PM

Updated: July 28, 2008 3:44 PM

From underneath a navy blue baseball cap, the crows feet around Kevin Columbus’ eyes tighten as he laughs at the ironic disposition of dentists.

“The dentists. I don’t know why they’re killing themselves,” says Columbus with a grin.

It is a gummy grin, which tell the story of his years with diabetes.

Recently, Columbus lost most of his front teeth due to his illness. Only two or three yellowed stubs remain.

In between sips of coffee with cream, no sugar, Columbus explains how it’s not the doctors like himself -– doctors who face diseases, surgeries and fatalities regularly — but it is the dentists who have the highest

suicide rate among professions.

He can’t understand how people with so much money, and none of those stresses that medical doctors face, could be so unhappy.

Columbus himself has lost the use of both of his legs because of diabetes.

He is suffering nerve damage in his hands and was declared legally blind before his cataracts were removed. He has faced a lifetime living with

depression, and recently, became bankrupt.

After all that, Columbus still considers himself a lucky man.

While describing his life as “the opposite of rags to riches,” Columbus laughs.

“My favourite weapon is humour,” he says.

If life had treated him a little more fairly, Columbus would have been retired by now and living off his RRSPs. But at 56, Columbus finds difficulty gathering together $60 for medication, or even $1.50 for the bus to the food bank to pick up a donation on a Thursday morning.

Although he spent his RRSPs “keeping myself alive” after discovering he had diabetes, he finds enough money to feed his “bird friends” – the seagulls

at the Superstore – for donations to charities, sponsoring a child in Africa and gifts for his many human friends.

“That’s what I do with my time,” says Columbus, as if donating every last penny of his wealth is nothing at all. “I help people.”

As he was a doctor, working everywhere from Labrador to California to Comox, at one time Columbus had enough money to build a library. Among the thousands of DVDs, CDs, books and scientific journals are

media devoted to the genre of comedy.

The next big project on Columbus’ agenda is to start a humour library for hospital patients.

One of his favourites is Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. He loves the wit.

He is not sure when this project will be completed, as it requires a lot of sorting, moving things around and help from others, and Columbus lives alone.

Another aspect that delays this project is that Columbus is a busy man.

“I do more now in a day than I ever did as a GP (general practitioner).”

One of his ongoing projects is studying veterinary assistance through correspondence so he can volunteer at the animal hospital in Courtenay.

“Right now I’m really keen on animal welfare,” says Columbus.

One way he cares for animals is feeding the seagulls that await his daily visits to Superstore.

“Every day the sun is shining,” Columbus can be found there, he says, tossing hot dog wieners to his favourite gull, Limpy.

Limpy has one leg “just like me,” says Columbus, whose leg was amputated due to his diabetes.

“Mainly, it’s my therapy,” says Columbus about his time with the birds. “It’s my highlight of every day.”

It’s not uncommon for Columbus to run out of money for food, for the birds or for himself, so, he sometimes panhandles.

This is because, when he gets his monthly disability check, he immediately puts funds aside for the African child he sponsors with World Vision.

Other portions of that cheque go to charitable donations, such as when he recently bought a gazebo tent for the food bank.

As he is a user of the food bank himself, Columbus observed people standing in line in all kinds of weather, for more than an hour, while they waited for their food donation.

So, he bought shelter for them to stand under in the rain and the heat.

It is not just his money and things that Columbus gives away.

As more and more Canadians die in Afghanistan, Columbus writes letters to each family who has lost someone, as well as those who come home as

amputees.

If he was healthy, he says, he would work in Afghanistan as a medical doctor.

He once tried to volunteer his services as a medical doctor once before.

Not wanting to work as a general practitioner, Columbus went to work at a street clinic in Halifax, when he graduated from his internship at Dalhousie.

Six months and a change in government later, Columbus was out of a job due to cuts in public funding.

The plan was to then volunteer as a medical doctor for the navy, but that plan died when they told him he would have to cut his long hair. Instead, he worked up North as a lobbyist for the Inuit in Labrador.

Although he has worked many jobs in many places, including as a doctor at the military base in Comox, his favourite job was “working with the native people” in Labrador.

“It’s loads of fun,” he says. “They’re the happiest people in the world.”

When he can afford it, Columbus still buys boots, books and clothing to send to those happy people anonymously.

In between sips of coffee with cream, no sugar, the man in the navy blue baseball cap, with a pink smile, a false leg and a life in a wheelchair, talks about the life he leads, and the life he’s lead, helping other people.

He talks about how he never thought he would go to medical school and how he was the first of 80 cousins to go to university.

Although his life has been dotted with years of solitude due to depression, he says he tried to make the best of his life by being athletic and active, camping, playing guitar, going to school and working as a doctor.

Even now, when his health is depleted, Columbus still does what he enjoys — helping people and seagulls alike, and laughing a lot.

“That’s the kind of life I’ve led,” says Columbus. “You just have to have fun with what you got.”

[hammerforged]

Buy him one for me Buckee.

[aksheephuntress]

Buy him one for me Buckee.

.....the same here....and maybe some of those wonderful butter tarts...

-what an awe-inspiring story...-this really made my morning, Steve-

[Tominator]

Makes you think, doesn't it.

[toddyboman]

wow...Thanks for that Steve

[Ohiobucks]

“You just have to have fun with what you got.”

Yep. Thanks for sharing Steve.

[ruttinbuc]

“You just have to have fun with what you got.”

Good advise...for all of us, no matter what lot in life we are in.

[stevebeilgard]

wow, steve. what a post. i hope you get to see him sometime, and buy him a cup of coffer.

[c_lou]

Good Post. Thanks.