All too easy to blame myself for what happened. I had certainly done so on many occasions in the last two years that I suffered with depression, unable to leave my apartment to do so much as take out the garbage.

It was worse when I did get the energy to leave. Often I would walk up to the top of the parking structure by my place and stare up at the sky, thinking wistfully about making it all go away.

But I never did. I was better than that.

Finally coming out of the haze I had been under, I found myself evicted and jobless. The mentally ill often seem to fall through the cracks.

I had to learn skills to cope with my new place in the urban wasteland: knowledge of where all the good eating dumpsters are, what corners of the park are good to hide from security for a nights sleep, which streets had the best panhandling.

I could survive like this for a time, but I needed more. It took some time for me to make the phonecall. Spare-changing for the toll was the easy part.

It rang six times.

“Hello, mom?”