Rest in Peace, Gordon King

[Car engine sounds]

Narrator: Tiffany Brocker started her commute to a retail job at the Twelve Oaks Mall like she did most mornings, with Tim Hortons and hand and spare cash in the cup holder. She hopped on Jefferson, drove past the Dollar Tree, Coney Island, Church of Christ, and stopped at the red light, right before the on-ramp to the I-75 Chrysler freeway. She loved this intersection. To many, it was just another glaring indication of the urban decay Detroit had become renowned for at the time, but to Tiffany and the community who lived underneath the overpass, this was Gordie's corner.

Today, however, Gordie wasn't there. Gordie had always been there. A sturdy morning fixture with his mile-long grin, his carefully penned sign in hand saying, “Homeless. Anything helps. God bless.” But today the corner was empty. It had been empty the day before, too. And the day before that. This was unsettling to Tiffany. Everyday she drove up with hopeful expectation, and everyday, an empty corner.

She tried not to jump to conclusions. The homeless moved around a lot. Maybe this was related to some good news. She imagined him in a new situation: public housing, assisted living or reunited with a family member, maybe employed, but the agitating anxiety that increased each time she crossed the empty intersection told her otherwise. The corner remained empty for days. Then weeks. Occasionally someone else would take a turn with the corner, but never Gordie. She started asking some of the other homeless people in the area if they'd seen him.

This is Tiffany.

Tiffany: And we asked about Gordie and, you know, “Have you seen him,” and people said, “No, I haven't.” They knew who he was because he'd been there for so — you know, he was almost a fixture — and, um, nobody had seen him. And it wasn't until April, one day, that I was at the corner and trying to get on to 375, and I was at the light and there was a gentleman there and I said — he didn't look familiar to me — but I said, “Do you know, um, Gordie, you know, Gordon King, who normally set this corner?” He said, “I do know him, why?” I said, “Have you seen him?” And I said, “He's, he's a friend of mine.” And he said, “Oh, honey, I'm so sorry, but he passed away.”

Gordon died, Detroit had over: 2000

When the homeless are a part of your commute or part of your daily encounters, it becomes easy to normalize. We massage the sorrow of seeing an elderly woman wheeling herself around the liquor store until it has no more emotional impact than the store itself. We adapt to the man on the corner begging for change until he blends in with the other traffic markers. We grow accustomed to the tragic reality, accept our limitations, relieve our guilt, become more pragmatic. We feel we have to do this to cope with sad realities. “This is just life,” we think, “And for some people, life is incomprehensibly hard.” And we continue our commute.

Tiffany couldn't do that. This is the story of Tiffany Brocker, Gordon King, and the Spirit of Detroit.

Welcome to Detroit Stories, a podcast on a mission to boldly share the stories of the people and communities in Southeast Michigan. These are the stories that fascinate us and inspire us.

Eight years ago, Tiffany had a lot on her plate. She, her husband, and their five adopted children had just moved from the suburbs to Detroit. They were renovating their house and were in the process of adopting a sixth child. In the midst of it all, Tiffany was working 50-hour weeks. When Tiffany moved to Detroit, it was reaching the height of its poverty rate. The Homeless Action Network of Detroit reported over 19,000 homeless were living in the city. 63% of them were reporting homelessness for their first time that year. Tent cities popped up along highways, shelters were consistently at capacity, and every corner had someone with a sign.

Tiffany: You know, I noticed immediately when we moved there that on the corners there by 375 and Jefferson there were a lot of homeless people on the corner. And honestly, it was shocking to see that because my whole life I had lived in the suburbs in an upper middle-class neighborhood where I was not really exposed to that.

Narrator: Tiffany adapted to her new neighborhood with tireless generosity. Most days started with the same words:

Tiffany: “Lord, help me find somebody that I can help today. Even if it is in the smallest way, I want to be able to help somebody.” It's difficult to turn a blind eye, you know? There've been a lot of naysayers like, “Oh, what if they don't really need the money?” And I'm like, that's not really my place to judge whether or not they needed the money. If somebody is scamming me, that is on them. I really have a difficult time saying no when somebody has a sign, you know?

So I — one day when I rolled down the window, Gordie was there, he had a sign and he seemed to be on that corner, you know, very often. And I gave him a couple dollars and we struck up a conversation while I was sitting at the light. There was just something about him that I was attracted to. Like, I just felt like he was like a — he was a good old soul. That makes sense.

Narrator: It was the sort of perfunctory exchange that many of us have routinely: open your window, give a few dollars and a “God bless” and move on. Maybe you avert your eyes and hope they don't look at you, and you learned to take a different route to work. But in Tiffany's case, it launched a six-year long relationship founded on sharing and prayer.

Tiffany: In the morning, I was always excited to see if Gordie was going to be on his corner. And it really was his corner. He was there more days than he was not there. So it was always good to see him. I would always hope, as I was coming around, that I was going to be able to make the light, that I'd be able to stop. Because sometimes you just can't — even with the rush hour traffic, you can’t, you know, you have to keep going. So throughout the years, I would see him. If I were to stop for breakfast to grab something, I would grab him a coffee or a hot chocolate. I would ask him if there's something that I could pray for him for, and then he would, in kind, ask the same thing. “Well, what can I pray for, for you, too?” That's really how that started. And it sort of blossomed through the years.

Fr. Tim McCabe: So Tiffany befriended him.

Narrator: This is Fr. Tim McCabe, Executive Director and President of the Pope Francis Center, a homeless ministry in downtown Detroit, that Gordie frequented.

Fr. McCabe: She started seeing him on the corner and at the gas station. And they struck up kind of a friendship.

Narrator: This is Leonardo, a homeless friend of Gordie's.

Leonardo: That’s a bond. They’re forming a bond.

Narrator: Her kids eventually met Gordie. He was always in their family morning prayers and regularly included in their shopping runs.

Tiffany: Yeah, I would just ask him, you know, what — can I get you something? And sometimes he would say no, and I would say, really, you know, I really want to help you. And then he would say, you know, “I could really use a new pair of socks,” or “I could use some new underwear.” So, um, that's just sort of how then I would respond by getting him some of the items that he needed.

Narrator: Then Tiffany started getting the community involved.

Tiffany: I just put out a call on Facebook saying, you know, “These are the kinds of things that I'm looking for.” Like hand warmers, coats, mittens, a good set of boots. I asked him, you know, what size shoes he wore, and pants, and so we were able to collect mostly new items actually for him to help get them through the winter. It's a little difficult, too, because when you're homeless, you don't obviously have a place to store these things. So you can't just bombard him or anybody that's homeless with a bunch of stuff when they don't really have a place to put it or store it if they couldn't wear it at that very moment.

So, I did the best I could, you know, I'd be like, “Do you need another pair? Do you need new socks?” You know, so as I could, would give him some things that would help him get through the winter. In the summer too, making little “blessing bags” that had deodorant in them, hand sanitizer, uh, deodorant, that sort of thing.

homelessness hit the news. In: 2014

Newscaster: ...make certain that everyone stays safe in this polar vortex. I can see...

Tiffany: I was worried sick about what the homeless were doing, because it was so cold.

Narrator: She couldn’t stop thinking about Gordie, where he might be, how she could find him, how he would make it through the night.

Tiffany: Channel 4 had a story about the homeless and how there are warming centers set up, and all of a sudden Gordie was on television. And so I saw him there, Gordon King, and I, you know, was just overjoyed. I thought, okay, he's going to be warm tonight. He has a place to stay, you know?

Narrator: But the reality of Gordie’s situation was that he didn't always have a warming center to go to.

Tiffany: It was really cold. And I was at an event at the DAC with my daughter, and we had stopped to get coffee, and, or — we stopped to get gas. And then I saw Gordie there, and he was actually at a different corner, but closer to the gas station. And I got him a coffee, and as I approached him, ‘cause it was so cold, I really got choked up seeing him there because I just thought, what are you — It's so cold out here, what are you going to do tonight? You know? And so, he did not want me to cry. He was like, “Please don't cry. I'm fine. I'm fine. I have a place to stay.” And I said, “Well, where are you staying?” And he said, “Under that bridge over there,” which was, you know, by the overpass right there by 375. And I just thought, how can you even navigate that physically with, you know, back issues? And it just, it really broke my heart,

Fr. McCabe: In this world, and this society, the homeless feel completely invisible. They feel like nobody sees them. Nobody cares for them. You know? And oftentimes when they're panhandling, they're mistreated. People throw stuff out their window at them, they yell, call them names and scream at them as they drive by. So, you know, to the extent that we can care and treat them with dignity and love.

e would need those prayers in: 2016

Tiffany: I get a call from my mom that my dad was dying. He had been in hospice throughout the summer, but was at home. We had actually been with him that weekend. He was in Detroit. And so my mom had taken him home on Sunday and she'd call me when they got home and said, “Dad is not doing well. I'm going to have hospice come and check on him.” And so on Monday they came and said, we should take him to the hospice center until he, um, you know — it's a little bit more settled. And so what they were really, you know — they knew that he, my dad was actively dying. So on Tuesday, my mom called me and said, “You need to come now.” So that's a three hour drive from our home in Detroit to my parents' home in Cleveland, Ohio.

So I was at work. I dropped everything. And, you know, we prayed together and I left and went to the gas station to gas up before getting on 75 to head home. And I saw Gordie there and he was shocked to see me — cause I was crying quite heavily, you know? And he just said, you know, “Are you okay?” And I said, “No, my dad is dying. I have to go home. I hope I make it in time.” And that was the fear, like, would I make it in time? And he said, you know, he was going to pray for my dad and he hugged me. And I could tell that he, you know, he wanted to be able to do something to help me. And I just said, “I just need you to pray for my dad. You know, please pray for Robert VanGotten”. And he said, “I will, I will.” And I then had to, you know, get in my car and drive home. And luckily I was able — my dad did not pass away until the next morning. And so I was able to be there with him when he passed away.

th,: 2017

Tiffany: And it just felt like a punch to the gut to hear that, you know? And then not knowing the circumstances of that situation. And I got to work and I was crying and I called a friend of ours, and I was like, “I — we have to find out what happened to Gordie.” You know? And so I called a friend of mine who was a funeral director and I said, what is a first step — Like, how would I find out? She's like, you know, just really just call the morgue first, see if he’s there. If he was homeless, he may not have been — his body may not have been claimed.

Narrator: It was unthinkable. Tiffany was sure someone somewhere knew him, loved him, had buried him. She called the Wayne County Morgue to find out for sure.

Tiffany: But when I called the morgue, I asked if they had somebody there by the name of Gordon King and they put me on hold and they came back and the gentlemen asked me, “Can I ask, what is the nature of your relationship to this person?” And I said, “It's going to sound a little weird, but we are friends. I knew him. He lived — he was homeless, he lived on the street and I've known him for years. And he said, “Yes, he is deceased.”

Narrator: The Wayne County Morgue had been waiting for a positive identification of Gordon's body. Fr. Tim went to identify it. This made Gordon’s situation exceptional as a homeless man. Every year, over a hundred unclaimed bodies are cremated at Wayne County Morgue, many of them homeless. When next of kin cannot be identified, or a family does not claim a body, the county will cremate the corpse and store the remains at Our Lady of Hope Cemetery.

Tiffany: I was shocked, I guess I, you know — I never really thought about it before. I had no reason to really think about, well, what happens. And so they did say that, you know, every year or so, that bodies that are unclaimed, that have been there for a year, will be cremated and basically to go into, like, a mass grave, like an unmarked grave. So that was really devastating to hear that, you know? I just — obviously part of being a Catholic is burying the dead. That's so important. And even though I had no idea whether or not Gordie was religious, obviously he did extend prayers for us, but I had no idea what his faith was, whether he was Catholic or Protestant or, you know, what his faith was. I just felt that it was so important that he have some sort of proper burial.

Narrator: Tiffany had decided Gordon King would get a memorial. The fact that she didn't have money for burial, a casket, flowers, a plot, these were minor setbacks.

Tiffany: I mean, I just can't imagine. It just makes me so sad thinking about people that are homeless, that don't have funerals. That there is no send-off. Because before they were homeless, before whatever circumstance they fell into, they had this whole other life, right? At some point they were somebody’s little boy or little girl, in a family with, you know, parents and aunts and uncles and some other family members, right? And they had friends at school and teachers. And so all of a sudden they have this traumatic change in their life. And they still obviously do have friends when they're living on the street, too.

But there needs to be some way to recognize the life that they had because it is important regardless of what happens in the end. That life was an important, valuable life. It mattered to people. They made a difference to people. And I just can't imagine not having some sort of closure for somebody's life.

Narrator: She started with the place that was essentially Gordie's home: the Pope Francis Center. They found an attorney who went to probate court to get the body released. The other pieces of the funeral came together with an unlikely ease that could only be called divine. A community who Tiffany hardly knew was animated by this force to give Gordie a final piece of dignity.

th,: 2018

Tiffany: And so what I loved about it was all these people who did not know Gordie came together. A lot of our friends came, my brother came from Cleveland. He drove up. So there were all these people that came to recognize this man that they did not know because they did not want that church to be empty. And then to be able to see his friends from the Pope Francis Center attend, and sort of bringing people that normally probably wouldn't be together in a social situation come together was really a beautiful thing.

Fr. McCabe: It was a moment in which his friends and his, you know, his community of folks that live on the streets and the Pope Francis Center played a small role, and the funeral home. We all kind of came together to make sure that Gordie was given a proper send-off.

Narrator: At the time the funeral was publicized, there were, of course, the rare detractors and cynics who commented on the waste of money, the pageantry, the insult of spending $3,000 on a man who was already dead when you could have fed who knows how many homeless, but the dozens of homeless who were given a dignified goodbye to their friend couldn't disagree more.

Jelani Shakur, a 34-year-old formerly homeless friend of Gordon's, called the act life-affirming and told reporters with tears in his eyes, “Everybody wants a funeral.”

Tiffany: I got to speak with Kacon there in the church before the service started. Kacon was a friend of Gordie's — and also a frequent guest at the Pope Francis Center — who attended Gordie's funeral. And he was really broken up. Like he was sobbing and just was overwhelmed that this was happening for Gordie. And he just said that Gordie would love this so much. And you know, that really meant a lot to me, knowing that. And I was glad that they were able to be there, because a lot of times there aren't funerals. And they don't get the chance to say goodbye to their friends either. And I, more than anything I wanted Kacon and the others to know that I see you and we here do see you and see that you are important. You are — you are valuable.

Narrator: In his homily, Fr. Tim said, the people in that church were what Detroit was all about. He said, “This is the spirit of Detroit. It's the city I live in and love.” People continue to do so much more for one another and recognize our common humanity. For Tiffany, that spirit of Detroit is a daily practice rooted in the same words she prayed the morning she met Gordie.

Tiffany: “Lord, help me find somebody that I can help today, even if it is in the smallest way.” And I want to pass that on to my kids: look around you, because you don't have to go far to find somebody who is in need. Whether it's a neighbor that needs something, you know, whether it's a grandparent or if it's something on a larger scale, something in your community, look around you. There is always some way that you can help to make somebody’s life better. And that — I seriously, every day say, “Lord, help me find somebody today. Show me that person that I can help, even in the smallest way.” So I was able to accomplish something with a lot of other people. So I think it's when you see something that needs to be done, I think it's important to know you don't have to do it all. Like, there are people all around who are willing to help. All you have to do is sort of ask for that help,

Narrator: Tiffany, the next time you need people, we’ll be here.

[Singing Amazing Grace]

Narrator: Detroit Stories is a production of Detroit Catholic and the Communications Department of the Archdiocese of Detroit. Find us on Spotify, Apple, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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