Vigil remembers passed homeless persons on Thursday, December 21, 2017.
On the longest night of the year, about 80 people gathered for a candlelight walk in memory of lives cut short.
Behind a mournful bagpiper, they carried battery-powered tea lights down Broadway, past the Salvation Army and Knox Area Rescue Ministries and those gathered outside. As police stopped traffic so the line could cross, they filed into the warm wooden sanctuary of St. John's Lutheran Church, ablaze with candlelight and Christmas opulence.
There, Preacher Bob Burger of the Highways and Byways street ministry launched the ninth annual Knoxville's Homeless Persons' Memorial Day service with a prayer and a promise: "If you accept the Lord as your personal savior, you're not homeless, you're houseless. When you get to Glory, you'll have a home."
Soft music and messages and reflections on homelessless and hope marked the initimate ceremony. By time to read the names of each of 31 homeless or "recently housed" in the community who died in the past year, the sanctuary was full of people who'd known them, served them, tried to save them -- and a few who'd lived among them.
Friends and strangers carried candles down the center aisle, one for each name read: Richard Allen. Richard Anderson. Margaret Emily Carmichael. Mary Yvette Fisher. Leonard Lee Grant. Timothy Lee Gregory. Tyler James Hobbs. Robert "Rob" Holland. Roger "Sammy" Hunt. Janet Johnson. Sharron D. Jordan. Eric Kingsley. Reinhard Krug. Cassiddy Lucia. Wanda M. Maples. David Eugene Martin. Jack Martin. Edward McGhee. Donna Ray. Maron Rhodes. Linda Sue Riggs. Earl Rymer. Edmund Sumner. Charles Tate. Richard Unegbu. Jeanne Williams. Earl Roger Williams. Edna Gertrude Wilson. Steven Eugene Womack.
And, Redeeming Hope Ministries Pastor Eddie Young finished, "... all of those we do not know about, or do not know by name."
They were victims of untreated illnesses, accidents, violence. At least two -- Sumner and Womack -- were veterans and were buried with honors. Some had lived in Knoxville only a season; others -- like Unegbu, known to many as "The Professor" -- had spent decades on the streets.
Statistically, said professor emeritus and social worker Roger Nooe, who's studied homelessness in Knoxville since 1985, their risk of dying prematurely is three to four times that of people who aren't homeless, with their life expectancy up to 30 years less.
Nooe noted Knoxville's homeless population has more than doubled in the past 30 years, and called for policy changes to help provide housing.
"Until I ended up 'houseless,' I had no idea how many houseless people are out there," said Mike O'Caroll, who was homeless for about a year and now has an apartment.
"We need to decrease the number of homeless people; we need to decrease the number of homeless people dying on the street," Nooe said. "We need to say that's no longer acceptable."
Before the service closed with attendees singing "Silent Night" and, spontaneously, "Oh, How I Love Jesus" a capella, those present were invited to share memories of the deceased.
A woman told of the ordeal searching for information on one of the men after he was hit by a car and ended up in the hospital -- a scenario that had happened before.
"He had an alias -- he didn't have a name," she said. "He was easily dismissed. He was easily passed over. He was easily forgotten."
But to her, he was a friend -- "funny, kind, interesting," she said. "He deserved more."
Several people shared stories about Unegbu, who was reticent, not talkative, until "he got to know you," one man said, and who sometimes suffered "dirty looks" from people who didn't know him and didn't understand his paper-shuffling.
"When we lose one, it's like losing a family member for us," he said. "I miss him. I can't wait to see him when I get to heaven, because I know he's there."