Over the past fifteen years I’ve second-guessed our choice of the pseudonym “Joy.” We first met when she joined my ongoing research project with Massachusetts women who have been incarcerated. From the start she shared old memories as well as brand new experiences of pain. Pulled out of her home by DSS (child welfare) at age 12, she survived multiple rapes, assaults, incarcerations, betrayals by friends and lovers, suicidal urges, prolonged episodes of sleeping on the streets, hunger, illness, cocktails of prescribed and illicit drugs, and overdoses.

During all those years Joy had managed to hold onto my phone number despite being robbed, losing phones, stints in jail, and nearly dying. She’d call me, often just to say hello, often to ask me to bring a “Greek salad – no tomato, extra feta cheese and olives; dark chocolate; shampoo and conditioner; and coca cola; and cigarettes” to whatever ward or unit or shelter she had landed in.

And now Joy is dead. It was not a surprise. Both she and I realized that things would go downhill when her daughter went to live with a relative in another state. Without hope of living with or even seeing her daughter, she was, in her words, “off and running.” (Joy, always concerned about her daughter’s well-being, was fully in agreement that her daughter should live with that very trusted and loving relative.)

Maybe the bigger surprise is that she survived for so long. How many years can a person sleep under a bridge and behind dumpsters? How many cycles of detox, drug treatment then release to the streets can a person take? How many cycles of commitment to mental health units then release to the streets when the number of days allotted by insurance runs out? How many cycles of beginning rehabilitation programs then being kicked out for breaking any one or two of the dozens of rules that set the residents up to fail? How many cycles of starting therapy but then the therapist leaves or Joy moves to another town or she is locked up in a jail or psychiatric facility where that therapist cannot continue working with her? How many cycles of public defenders who barely meet her before representing her in court? Of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous groups that kick her out for “relapsing”? Of men she is sure are kind and loving but then beat her up and throw her and her belongings out onto the street?

How many times can one woman be knocked down and get back up?

Joy survived to the age of 45. Young by the standards of securely housed, middle-class Americans. Old by the measure of the streets.

Joy was open-hearted: always willing to share her last dollar, last cigarette, last sandwich, last condom, and last hit of crack with a friend. Joy was emotionally open: trusting, hopeful that a new friendship or romantic relationship would be good. She even trusted the police, more than once telling me that officers look out for her safety. She trusted the system – going back again and again to hospitals and detoxes, to programs and rehabs. She even trusted caseworkers and other experts who told her that her generosity — the one aspect of her being in which she took pride – was actually a character flaw. That her “problem” was that she cared about others.

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Joy’s other great virtue was the inability to dissemble. She just didn’t have it in her to lie. The other people picked up with her in the police raid or the sting operation could lie their way out of charges. Joy always confessed. Peers who broke rules in therapeutic programs managed to sneak past the counselors. Joy was always caught. Other people could lie to men, to caseworkers, to people asking for a dollar. Not Joy. And so it was from Joy — always open, always honest — that I learned the most about trying to survive on the margins.

Despite it all, Joy was able to laugh at herself. In the midst of the pain and misery she could see the humor in situations: the catch-22’s in bureaucratic rules, the insanity of releasing her to the street after a week in a locked psych unit, the ridiculous regularity with which she hooked up with awful men. She would share a smile that seemed to say, “You and I are in on the secret – we know the world is crazy.”

I remember how a number of years back she overdosed and was taken to the hospital, where the medical staff had to cut off her clothes in order to treat her. A day or so later they dismissed her from the hospital wearing a hospital Johnny and did not give her bus fare or a taxi voucher. She went straight to Target and stole clothes. “It’s my luck,” Joy laughed. “They arrested me for shoplifting.”

To be clear, Joy didn’t think overdosing or stealing were funny. And on several occasions she told me that she feels like she has a “big L for loser” carved into her forehead. But somehow, with it all, she had the ability to step back and see humor in the darkness. I think that is one reason she survived so long.

Joy remained optimistic almost to the end. She believed that this new program or new boyfriend, or the one old friend she’s had since childhood, would work out, would be kind, and would stand by her. That she’d find a place where she belongs. That she’d be able to stay sober and live with her daughter. That’s she’d finally get the secure housing that she’d longed for since she was a teenager. That her heart of gold, her loyalty and her generosity would be recognized and admired rather than mocked and exploited. And here too, she’d share a smile that seemed to say, “You and I both know that is never is going to happen.”

You can read more about Joy in these posts: Suicide is Painful Suicide is Painful, Update and in the updates on the women of Can’t Catch a Break