Christmas Eve 1982

Christmas Eve 1982, my mother, my brother and I are homeless. I was six years old. I remember being cold and hungry and just wanting to watch Frosty The Snowman on television. The previous evening we all slept on the floor of a social services office in downtown Manhattan. I guess my mother took us there to get some emergency housing and perhaps a food voucher. I knew we were not in a good situation, my brother was too young to know what was going on. It was very uncomfortable, I remember there being a lot of families there like mine. Mostly women with young children. The place wasn't the least bit appealing to a child, it was a dreary cold welfare office. A pretty sad place to be, let alone sleep, two nights before Christmas.

The following day after waiting for what seemed like forever, My mother was given the address to a motel in Queens and a voucher to pay for a couple of nights stay there. We had to stay in the motel until December 26th, after which we'd have to go back to the welfare office and wait some more. I remember feeling very excited because it was snowing by the time we arrived in Queens. Looking back, I really appreciated the snow that evening. Somehow it made everything seem fine. It was Christmas Eve, and though we'd be staying in a dump of a motel for the next couple of nights, I was comforted by the snow...