SHARIF
By: Diana Nyad
Tags: Family, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Homelessness, Mental Illness

My brother would have turned 69 today, August 31. But Sharif died young, twelve years ago, after surviving the hardships of living on the streets of Boston all his adult life.

Sharif was born William but changed his name to Sharif. My mother Lucy blamed herself for not recognizing his mental illness from a very young age, but to be fair to Lucy it was an era when we didn’t automatically interpret eccentric behavior of a child as illness.

We thought of young Bill as a Brainiac, a chess wizard, a massive reader of books beyond other kids his age. He often stayed up all night, which made me mad because he would be talking to his imaginary friends and that would keep me from the sleep I needed as a little swimmer. He wrote a book and it was published when he was 11, called The Jewels of the Everglades, and we had school classes visit our home where Bill would lecture them on the bedazzling tropical tree snail shells in his collection.

By the time Sharif attended college in Boston, he had exhibited traits of schizophrenia, delusions and exhausting bouts of mania. But still we in the family (my mother, my sister and I) attributed all that to drug use. After only a couple of months of college, Sharif took to living on the streets and he made his life among the homeless until he died at age 57.

When I lived in NYC, I would go up to Boston to try to find him a couple of times of year. It wasn’t difficult. I’d go to Kenmore Square and ask for the Pied Piper. That’s what the homeless community there called Sharif. He was their wise leader, helped them with their medical, family, legal, personal issues. But, ironically, he couldn’t manage his own life. He believed he played for the Boston Pops and would wander around town all day long, from pawn shop to pawn shop, fumbling through the thick packet of pawn tickets bulging in his back pocket, nervously trying to get his favorite alto sax out of hock for the Pops performance that night.

Each time I’d visit him, I offered him the shower at my hotel, offered him a nice meal at a nice restaurant. I would have thought he would swoon to take a hot bath. Yet Sharif refused, as he refused my offer of a $100 bill. He wanted me to join him for dinner at his soup kitchen, wanted me to meet all his friends. And he had many.

During the intense training for the Cuba Swim, summer of 2010, I got the call that Sharif had smothered in his pillow. I met my sister and we flew to Boston to make funeral arrangements. On my way there, I was filled with sadness for the life he should have had. But spending that funeral day with all his fringe friends, most just like Sharif — -smart, caring, funny — and crying with the daughter he had on the streets, I came away lauding his position as a thoughtful leader among his peer group. The day his daughter was born was the last day he took a drink or did any drugs. By the way, lol, at the service itself, when I announced coffee and cake would be served in the adjacent room, the whole gang sprinted over there, and kept the minister waiting till they had had their fill. They spoke eloquently of their mentor Sharif, who would read Nietzsche to them on the beach at sunrise, who would get them free medical attention, who would help them find housing during the windy Boston winters.

On the way to his funeral, I had been lamenting the fact that Sharif hadn’t known life’s pleasures. He had never been on a vacation, seen the grand sites of Mother Nature, as an adult. He hadn’t engaged his fervent mind among a group of similarly intelligent colleagues. But I flew back to Key West of a different mind. Sharif had led the life he chose. He was attached to a bunch of loyal friends. He was their trusted leader. He took a soup kitchen dinner to a blind friend of his every night for twelve years. Every night for twelve years. Sharif is decidedly the only person I’ve ever met who has done such a selfless act.

As we witness and feel sorrow for the homeless situation in such egregious numbers these days (66,000 on the streets of Los Angeles now), I just wanted to weigh in with one story, to perhaps give some perspective on those about whom we perhaps make unfair assumptions.

Happy Birthday, my brother Sharif. I remember you with great affection.