Homelessness Archives - Cindy DeBoer

Thanksgiving Eve Sucks

Cindy DeBoer — Thu, 25 Nov 2021 04:34:08 +0000

Sometimes holidays conjure up more pain and despair than joy and celebration. That’s true for me, anyway, on the day before Thanksgiving. It was 2013 and with the table set, the turkey stuffed, and pies complete, my husband and I spent the day before Thanksgiving driving to Ann Arbor to meet with a pulmonology specialist. […]

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Leave It Broken

Cindy DeBoer — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 03:29:39 +0000

When we bought our hundred-year-old crack house we discovered that somewhere in its history a previous owner made an egregious err in personal assessment and believed themselves to be “handy.” They tackled a variety of home improvement projects such as brick laying, replacing windows, updating trim and doors, installing sinks and faucets, and building closets. […]

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How to Launch Into Winter with COVID All Around Us

Cindy DeBoer — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 19:12:24 +0000

My stupid COVID dog (not that she has it, but we bought her because of it) woke me up way too early one morning. I wouldn’t mind if our Governor mandated all humans shall not stir before 8:00 a.m. Vie (my COVID dog’s name – which is French for “life”) needs a walk immediately upon […]

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The Pond Scum Exchange (Why voting matters less than you think)

Cindy DeBoer — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 23:32:35 +0000

When we bought our sucky crack-house we thought the fantastic view of the zoo/park across the street might possibly redeem the pitiful structure. However, the park struggles financially and some things have become a bit of an eyesore. All summer long our park pond has looked like this: Our neighborhood Facebook group recently debated the […]

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A Hiding Place (When the next Holocaust comes, you can come live with me)

Cindy DeBoer — Fri, 22 Nov 2019 18:38:52 +0000

Upstairs, on the third floor of our former crack home, awaits a really big and really empty, comfortably furnished attic apartment. Now that we are empty nesters, we’re deciding how best to use it. An exchange student? A foster child? Airbnb? Perhaps. But because our pastor mentioned the Holocaust this past Sunday and because these […]

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On Dying Slowly

Cindy DeBoer — Thu, 25 Apr 2019 15:44:28 +0000

One of the lowest, crappiest things well-intentioned people say to you when they find out you have a terminal illness is this: “Well, you know, we’re all dying really.” Of course we are. Nobody believes these bodies will last forever. But sometimes it just stinks to be me because someone gave me a TIME LINE. […]

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What Does God Smell Like?

Cindy DeBoer — Tue, 20 Feb 2018 23:08:08 +0000

It’s been six weeks since Heidi died. I have spent innumerable hours thinking about her in heaven. I like Revelation 7:9-17 best for a descriptive image of what she does with all her time. Without any cancer, suffering, work, eating, sleeping, etc. – just imagine all the time we’ll have for praising God in heaven! […]

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We accidentally bought a crack house – and soon found ourselves addicted, too.

Cindy DeBoer — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 18:51:00 +0000

There is a spiritual heaviness in our upstairs back porch and all the praying people who walk through the place can feel it. Our college-aged sons who have done their share of watching “Breaking Bad” and have lived in plenty of sketchy neighborhoods quickly identified the telltale signs of a crack room: excessive amounts of […]

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Why I'd give booze/drug money to a beggar:

Cindy DeBoer — Fri, 12 Feb 2016 16:47:04 +0000

*He was 5 years old when his mother’s boyfriend sodomized him. When he was 7, the people that lived in his house threw a party where everyone got stoned – so stoned, in fact, that they passed the boy around as their sex toy. A year later, he started smoking weed, too, just to escape […]

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