A Gift of Friendship : Christmas Kindness Lets Homeless Man Visit Family He Hasn’t Seen in 11 Years

Last Christmas, Charles Oliver Jr. huddled on a Downtown sidewalk with his buddies and divvied up the booty of ham, imported liquor and clothes he received from the office workers who appreciate the cheery “good morning” he greets them with each day when they park their cars in the lot where he sleeps.

This Christmas is different.

For the first time in 11 years, Oliver got an opportunity to return home and be surrounded by his parents, brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews in East Chicago, Ind.

“I can’t wait to hug and kiss every one of them and I hope they will want to hug and kiss me too,” Oliver, 41, said a few days before he boarded the plane back to his hometown.

His Kris Kringles this year were Yvette Kalachian, 28, and her aunt and uncle, Lana and Irv Paley.

Oliver met Lana Paley about two years ago when she started working at her husband’s Hill Street jewelry store and began parking across the street, in Oliver’s lot.

The first time he welcomed her--”Good morning. Do you have any spare change?”--she ignored him and he cursed her out.

“He used to dance in the middle of the street. I was scared of him,” she said last week.

“I have to stay warm somehow,” Oliver responded, and they both broke into laughter.

The second time, a few days later, Lana gave him some change. They exchanged a few jokes and became friends.

Oliver began walking Paley from the parking lot to her building each morning and guarding her each night as she made her way back to her car. As Oliver did for many of his friends who park in the lot, he was the first to give her a card on the holidays and remembered her birthday with small gifts from nearby Thrifty or J. J. Newberry.

He manages to pay for these tokens with savings from the $50 to $75 he makes each week panhandling and doing odd jobs for the local shops, he said.

When Kalachian began working at the jewelry store in July, she was eager to meet this Charles that her aunt had been raving about.

Soon Kalachian and Oliver, who share a common spiritual devotion, were singing, “I shall not be moved like a tree planted by the water,” and other spirituals during their evening walks to her car.

One night in September, Kalachian noticed that the usually effervescent Charles had been crying. He was thinking about his family, which he had not seen for 11 years, Kalachian said.

“You are going home,” she told him.

Oliver did not believe her but played along. “During Christmas would be nice,” he replied.

Kalachian, described by her aunt as “Mother Teresa in disguise,” went to work. She called the Antioch Baptist Church, where Oliver had been an altar boy, and found out that his family was still living in his hometown.

The minister informed her that a Roseanne Oliver in the congregation often prayed for her missing brother, Charles.

Oliver said although his older sister and his baby brother might have suspected he was homeless, his parents and five other siblings were unaware that he had spent the last decade living on and off the streets.

When Kalachian told her aunt and uncle about the idea, Irv Paley immediately volunteered his frequent-flyer miles to cover the trip. Yvette bought a suitcase and began packing it with all he would need--clothes, a Bible with his name embossed in gold, and gifts for his nieces and nephews.

“Charles is very special. He can be sick with a fever, and he will tell me to go home and take care of myself. He deserves this,” Kalachian said.

Oliver had tried to save money to go home in the past but could never scrape enough together. When he realized what Kalachian and the Paleys had done for him, he was dumbfounded with gratitude.

“They are God’s children. I don’t know where they came from in my life,” he said, and began to cry.

When Kalachian and the Paleys contacted the Biltmore Hotel to make arrangements for Oliver to stay the night so he could get cleaned up before his trip, the hotel put Oliver up for free after they heard his story.

Although he would look his best, Oliver was still worried about the reception his family might give him. With the exception of a few scattered phone calls, he had not had any contact with them since he left home.

“The weather is not the only thing that can be cold in Indiana,” Oliver said.

Oliver admitted that he still carried a slight grudge against his family for not helping him as much as he would have liked when he lost his foundry job in East Chicago. But he said he thinks he can forgive them.

Unbeknown to Oliver, who believed he would be surprising his folks, Kalachian called ahead to let his family know that he would be coming home the Wednesday before Christmas.

Oliver’s sisters said they would meet him at the airport in rented limousines and throw a party for him when he arrived.

Oliver’s father said the whole family would be glad to see him and that he was more than welcome to stay at any of their homes.

“I have nothing against my son. He knows where to come home to. He knows the address,” Charles Oliver Sr. said.

Oliver’s father offered to pay for him to come home once, in 1990, but Oliver said he couldn’t leave a sick friend he was caring for.

Oliver is scheduled to return to Los Angeles Jan. 9. He wouldn’t leave Los Angeles without a round-trip ticket.

“It’s all right for me to go and visit,” he said, “but it’s too cold back there for me to stay.”