For months now, Byron lived on a park bench in Delhi Park in Picton with his “daughter” Ruby, a dog he had purchased as a pup two years earlier. After his restless sleep, Byron and Ruby would often walk the streets to see how he might get something to eat, hiding his few belongings, a sleeping, bag, some extra socks, a half-eaten bag of Cheesies in some nearby bushes. Often when he returned he’d find that some teens crossing through the park had stolen his hidden belongings, not out of need but out of malice.

He and Ruby had faced their taunts and jeers in the past and knowing they were just “stupid kids” didn’t take the sting out of what they said about him. But stealing what little he owned was crushing for him and it brought him closer to despair and his anxiety that could paralyze him from time to time would well up inside. His faith would be restored in humanity when people would go out of their way to bring Ruby a treat or to stop and talk with him to tell him what a beautiful companion he had at his side. He loved Ruby and when others loved her too his heart would swell with gratitude.

Ruby was in fact the reason that Byron returned to schooling in the Learning Centre. The stifling humid heat of July would prompt Byron to seek refuge for her in the air-conditioned basement of the Armoury. But he couldn’t linger there for long without being challenged and so he enrolled in the adult classes because the lessons were easier to take than the punishing heat.

It was there that I first met Byron. There is the cool darkened classroom in the Armoury basement, head bowed over an assignment and Ruby right at his feet. He liked the darkened solitude I later discovered. When I asked him if his name was Byron, he didn’t even look up and chose not to answer. I told him I was from Kate’s Rest, a place where he might live if he wished. A place where he and Ruby to make a home. Would he like to come and see the place, I asked. At first, I wondered if he even understood what I asked but then he closed his book and got up from the desk, and said “sure” without looking at me.

Kate’s Rest became his and Ruby’s home for many years, a home that he made with us. A place where he felt he belonged and where he would spend the rest of his days.