Dave De Boer was visiting with his parents in Montana and he told them he wanted wanted to see Los Angeles. He would go there by bus and see the sights of the sprawling city. When Steve, his brother, was about to drive him to the bus stop, his mother came running towards the car. She wanted to accompany Dave on the bus and spend the day with him. This struck Dave as quite odd since his mother never did anything without her husband, and he had no interest at all in Dave’s plans and preferred to stay home.

“Mother, that’s not a good idea. More than likely we’ll get lost and accidentally end up in some rough part of town,” Dave insisted.

They continued to argue, but she would have none of it. There was no changing her mind and Dave had to give in to her. She was going to join him on the bus ride whether he liked it or not. When they reached the last stop, the bus driver noticed Dave’s deep concern over his mother.

“You’ll be all right,” said the bus driver. “You’re only five minutes from downtown.”

They stuck closely together and started around the block in search of a store or restaurant that might possibly have a restroom. Leaving the store, they turned to the right and quite suddenly came face to face with the shock of their lives. Before them was a homeless man, his hair was long and dirty, his beard reaching down to his belt, his stained clothes hung loosely on his thin frame.

Dave couldn’t bear to look at this homeless man, but couldn’t take his eyes off him either. He was his brother, Doug, his mother’s first child, and she embraced him lovingly. Gone was the star high school athlete. Gone was the college graduate. Gone was the Vietnam veteran. He had never recovered from that terrible experience in the jungles of Vietnam. He was now a schizophrenic, and his only words, after his mother let go of him were:

“What are you guys doing here?”

This unexpected encounter was the first contact with Doug in years.

“Now I realize why my mother had to come with me on the bus that day,” reflected Dave. “She was compelled to find her long, lost son, and she wouldn’t let hope die.”

When Dave’s mother left for Los Angeles with him on the bus that day, did she feel she would find Doug? Dave didn’t really know because she never said a word to him about her purpose in joining him on the bus. It was like she was being led by some unseen force to rescue Doug from a life of homelessness on the streets of Los Angeles.

Doug returned a few months later to his home state of Montana where Dave helped him get situated at the Rescue Mission in his town and where he is now able to work in the mission’s thrift shop. In short, Doug has a satisfying and useful life of his own, back home where he belongs. Doug’s Mom and Dad live two hours away, and they visit him every other month or so. About twice a year Doug boards a bus, not to drop out of sight as he originally had done, but to spend some quality time with his parents.

“I now realize that this miracle never would have happened,” says Dave, “but for the burning hope in mother’s heart that led her to make that providential journey to Los Angeles by bus.”

—Fr. Hugh Duffy