22/10/2023
My Giant Sprout 💚 Paulie Sonshine 🌞 and me in late December 2019. I came back from Maryland, and he came back from North Carolina with the help of my niece. We were both homeless but together in Florida. The best I could manage was for him to live out of the back of my van. We would get rooms here and there when we had funds or someone gave us comp hotel nights. This was at the Tru in Sebring. My daughter let us use her Hilton points. I had spent the Fall and beginning of Winter inside. He had spent that time freezing on the streets of Raleigh -Durham and had been treated for frostbite and exposure several times. I was just glad to have him where he wouldn't freeze to death. He suffered on the streets for the past six years, with the exception of less than a year that he had an apartment on his own in Avon Park. It caught fire while he was sleeping. Fortunately he survived but he was homeless again. When you see a homeless person, please be kind. They are someone's child, and maybe, like Paul, a parent, sibling, and uncle as well.
~Pauls mom, Cat
