Yesterday I read a compelling story about a young man who walks the streets every day in Bermuda. Up and down and all around. He looks like he is running from something. His eyes wide but always with a smile. Almost like he knows something the rest of us don’t. He holds his hands like he is beating a drum. My family nicknaming him the Drummer Man. Something about him drawing us to him. Some days he walks slower than others. But most days he walks with a sense of urgency.
I always wondered what his story was. How this tall and good looking young man ended up walking the streets day in and day out. How he looks harmless some days and wild others. I have to admit I was drawn to this young man. Trying to figure out his story.
So I was happy to read his story. To discover this young man has demons he is choosing to fight by being out in nature. Communing with nature. Walking rain, blow or shine so he can naturally increase his endorphin levels and help to suppress the darkness that is threatening him. Overwhelming him. Trying to pull him into a place he knows he will not return from. He says he walks so he does not end up on drugs or sitting on the walls drinking like some of the other people he knows. He says he walks to clear his mind.
I believe walking calls him when he is on the brink. And after reading how he is the way he is because society has condemned him because of past mistakes, that led him to make a simple and naïve mistake that landed him in prison in a foreign land. Beaten like he was a nobody. Then placed in a halfway house, I felt his pain. I understood his shame and why he retreated into his shell. Losing confidence in his abilities.
Doors shut in his face. Judgment of his character became the norm and soon he was an outcast. Unable to bring himself back from the pain and shame. Realizing why whenever I saw him, he seemed to touch a place in me I did not quite understand. But after reading his story I knew it was because I looked at him and thought when he was born then grew into a little boy, he probably had dreams of becoming something or someone greater than the man walking the streets.
Looking at him then at my son I am raising and wondering how dreams could be shattered so completely that this young man’s only means of salvation is to walk the streets. Thinking that young man is someone’s son. Someone who had dreams of what their son could become as I have about my son.
And now I know this young man has a name, his name is Damon Fox and he walks because it is the only way he can stop himself from going completely mad. From losing touch with reality altogether. He walks so he can free himself but more importantly he walks because it gives him purpose. A sense of accomplishment. And I now understand that he is not dangerous. Not crazy but a man trying to find peace with where he is in life.
A man who seems to bring joy to those who accept him for who he is and why he does what he does. A man always with a smile on his face. A man with a story just like the rest of us. A man seeking his place in society without going to the dark side. His story is now out there and people acknowledge him. I commend the reporter who wrote the story about Damon because now he has a name and he has become human in most of our eyes rather than a person who walks the street.
He is not Walking Man or Drummer Man. He is Damon Fox and he has a story just like you and me. Any one of us could have been given the hard knocks he was given and the question becomes what would we have done. There are only six degrees of separation between us all so we need not condemn or judge anyone until we know their story.
Damon will be taking part in our annual End to End charity walk and I am rooting for him. Hoping that whatever it is he needs to come back from the brink is opening for him. Hoping we remember to not judge or condemn anyone because of how interconnected we all are. Hoping for hope.
Thank you Damon for walking every day. For communing with nature until we discovered who you are and why you are. Teaching us that everyone has a story and everyone matters. Good luck to you and I will speak your name and acknowledge you for who you are when I see you. As will my family as we shared your story last night. No longer thinking of you as the Drummer Man but knowing you as Damon Fox, the least expected teacher, but one of the greatest for us.
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