By Cecilia Nasmith/Pete Fisher
The staff at the LCBO at Northumberland Mall not only saved a man’s life, they restored his life.
After not seeing his family in New Brunswick almost 30 years, Rob Beckett is resettling in that Maritime province in the loving home his newly rediscovered brother is providing. But the story began in Cobourg this frigid winter when he was living in his van.
Rob had taken to parking the vehicle at the Northumberland Mall parking lot. LCBO staff interviewed by Today’s Northumberland had noticed it before, occupying different spots, leaving and coming back.
“We assumed it was a traveller,” a spokesman for the group said.
As January dragged on, they noticed it wasn’t moving any more. It was parked facing the LCBO, stationary in the wall of snow surrounding it because plows had been working at clearing the parking lot.
And there were no tracks in the snow to or from the van.
Friday morning, Jan. 23, is when they became concerned, the spokesman said, and one of his colleagues decided to go out and talk to the van’s occupant, see if he was okay.
She headed out, knocked on the window. The person inside said he was fine. Asked if he needed anything, he admitted he was hungry but completely broke.
“So quickly she jumped into her vehicle, went off and got food for him – Tim Hortons sandwiches, chili, coffee – brought it back to him, and she came back and told me.”
The employee went out himself about an hour later just to check on the occupant for himself and to offer additontional assistance.
“He looked really bad. He looked absolutely horrible. His face was sucked in. He was wearing a toque, a fleece sweater and a dress shirt, and a pair of, work pants and men’s dress shoes. No coat, no nothing in the way of (being) prepared for winter.”
He asked the man if he needed help, and he begged for some water.
“So I quickly got a case of water, brought it to him. He drank two bottles of water in under 10 seconds.”
The van window had been left down a bit, and there was actually a build-up of snow through the crack.
Rob said that his battery was dead.
“I pulled up my car, started boosting the battery – it was completely dead. Then he says it won’t start anyways, there’s no gas.
“I happen to live close by. I went home, got a can of gas, put in 20 litres of gas in his vehicle, continued to boost it, got it started.”
He also told his wife about the situation.
“She started making calls but reported back that there are no shelters. 310 (the Northumberland County higher-barrier homeless shelter at 310 Division St., Cobourg) is not taking anyone in.’”
They did, however, direct them to the warming room at 555 Courthouse Rd which would be open 24 hours a day for the weekend.
“I got him to drive the vehicle behind mine over to the warming room, parked it – it died again – and got him into the warming room.”
Helping Rob out of the vehicle, he got some insight into the grimness of life in a van in the winter as he noticed the styrofoam, cardboard and pages ripped out of a book that he’d been stuffing into his clothing to keep warm.
Rob was so cold, his legs so frozen, that he almost had to be carried into the warming room. He was very weak and dehydrated, could not even stand up without assistance. The spokesman managed to get him into the second-floor room, where he promptly put his hands over his head and collapsed over the table.
Light snacks are provided in the warming room. His colleagues at the LCBO also brought home made soup for him, along with some cakes and breads.
Next morning, the spokesman went to the warming room to check on him and bring more snacks and food, when he noticed the green bag of food that his colleague had delivered was gone. The security guard Amanda on duty said people had been trying to take his food. She took a real shining to Rob.
“I said, ‘okay, great.’ I also brought a pillow from home. He put the pillow on the table and put his head down, Rob was in the same position when I left him,” he reported.
“All he wanted to do was sleep.”
LCBO staff went out to buy winter clothing for Rob – sweaters, pants, long underwear and a coat. This was all donated by the employees. Basic clothing and cash.
“We were kind of preparing to somehow – we didn’t know what we were actually preparing for. This was a very new territoty for us with not much support from social programs. We just wanted him to get warm,” he recalled.
“There was no option in town, so we were preparing the best for him to be able to go back to the van temporarily. We were very upset about it,” he added, given that the weekend forecast called for Arctic weather.
“We knew he would not survive that weekend in the van.
“The Sunday when I went back and checked on him, people were trying to steal his belongings, whatever little belongings – the blanket, the socks that we had sent for him. They had gone missing.”
He spoke with his wife about the situation, and the two of them decided to put Rob up at the Lotus Motel for five days.
“Tina (at the Lotus Motel) was absolutely fabulous,” he stated.
“We got him into the motel, and he literally curled up in the room with that pillow and hugged that pillow.
“I drove him to the motel with his vehicle, when I got it started again, then brought the vehicle back to my house. We were able to secure a battery – brand new battery through donations and the staff at Carquest on Elgin St. So I boosted the vehicle, got it to my house, opened it up, replaced the battery, put on new wipers.
“Because in the back of my mind, we’re thinking he’s got to go back in his van. It’s got to be driveable, right?”
Inside the van, he noticed the smell and the camping cup with a spoon in it, filled with snow. Spent lighters lay all around, making him think Rob had been melting cups of snow just to get some kind of moisture into his system There was another little bowl of frozen tomato sauce he’d been chipping away at.
“He had nothing. He had absolutely nothing.”
He would later find a jacket from Jebco Manufacturing in Colborne. By coincidence, he knew the owners, from whom he learned a little more information. He had a CIBC bank card at one time, but someone took it while he was at the warming room and used it for about $150 worth of purchases.
“I went to the bank on Tuesday, got nowhere. Went to the bank with him on Wednesday. The manager at the CIBC was Carolyn. She was beyond helpful – like she was absolutely fantastic,” he said.
“She looked into all his finances, realized that the debit card that he had was not used since Dec. 13, which is around the time we saw the van stop moving.”
She cancelled that card immediately and issued him a new one. There was still a little money in his account, most of which was still paying for the van (which is financed by CIBC) and his insurance. All he had left to live on was about $400 a month, which is why he was living in the van.
The spokesman could not see that being sustainable any longer.
“I was hitting walls left, right and centre with charities, the county,” he said.
“There was no help for Rob. There’s nothing.”
“We were referred to the Help Centre from searching on-line, there Kim and Val met with Rob and I. We cannot say enough about how kind and compassionate they have been.”
“That’s where we started to get a little bit of traction running,” he said.
Jebco also came through with some emergency contact information, most of which was no longer valid – except for the name David Beckett. My wife Danielle, mounted what he described as her own FBI investigation to track him down, eventually finding an Erny Beckett of North Bay. He was no relation, but he does do genealogical research as a hobby. He was able to connect them to a Jim Beckett in New Brunswick – and Robert had said he had a brother named Jim, though he thought Jim had died.
“I contacted Jim, and he thought it was a scam. He was very guarded, very dismissive,” the spokesman recounted.
Jim Beckett is a retired social worker who worked in prisons and group homes.
“They’re religious people. They write hymns, they do volunteering, they actually take in special-needs children and foster them. And one of them they end up kind of adopting her.”
He was skeptical that Rob was his brother, so the Manager arranged a video call on Sunday, Jan. 25.
“As soon as he saw Robert on the bed, his facial expression said it all,” he shared.
“He says, ‘Brother, I’m coming for you.’ He goes, “Okay, Jimmy, okay, Jimmy.’”
The work now focused on preparing for a reunion as opposed to surviving the cold. They got him a cane to help with his impaired mobility, took him for a shave and a haircut, got him looking like someone who takes pride in his appearance.
And Pastor Kevin Moore stepped in to help with funding for the motel until Rob leaves on Sunday, Feb. 8.
The spokesman remembers dropping in to check on him, and finding him pacing back and forth in the room without his cane.
“He says, ‘I’m just walking, getting my steps in. I need to get my strength back.’
“He’s got light in his eyes now. He looked like a corpse the first day. He wouldn’t have lasted that weekend, 1,000%. He would not have lasted. There was no power to the vehicle, the battery was completely dead, there was not a drop of fuel left in it, no food, no liquids or money, the window was down – he would not have survived.”
The band of LCBO employees have really stepped up, he said.
“We’re a small group, we’re a small-town people and, you know, the sense of community really came out on this team. This really affected us from day one.”
Rob’s brother is 70 years old and not well enough to make the trip, so they bought him an airline ticket from Billy Bishop Airport. Helping him prepare, the employee said Rob was deciding what belongings he wants to keep (definitely the Jebco jacket), with Kim from the Help Centre providing a suitcase to take it in.
Even this exercise brings home what kind of life Robert has been living. Since 2011, his “address” was a post box at the UPS store. This is how he’s maintained his license, his health card, his bank loan – everything – while his actual address may or may not have been Greenwood Towers in Port Hope with a roommate, where he incurred incredible amounts of debt that he doesn’t even remember incurring.
As he awaits departure, he has been fed by the LCBO group, who have noticed he especially loves fruits and sweets.
They accompanied Rob to an ATM to test out his newly restored bank card. As he took and pocketed the $20, they could see him straighten up and smile.
“The love that this staff has shown for Robert is absolutely beyond anything I could have ever imagined – it’s bonded this team really, really tight,” the spokesman said.
“For my wife and me, we feel vested. We’re not going to rest until this is done.”
This includes long phone conversations with Jim Beckett and his family. He has actually written a hymn and a song dedicated to finding his brother – the one he happened to play at his church on the day his brother was found in that LCBO parking lot.
It also included a trip to the hospital. Given Rob’s weakened condition, they were worried about diabetes and possible dementia. They learned that he has low iron levels and is suffering from anemia. They are sending these records on to his brother. Arriving at the hospital at approximately 1:15 p.m., Rob waited and at 7:30 p.m. was discharged without anything being done. No medication, no diagnosis about his feet other than was told it was water retention. Around 3 p.m. the LCBO employee received a call from a geriatric nurse saying Rob would be admitted to hospital.
But that didn’t happen and he was released from the hospital.
“There was such a breakdown in communication.”
“The doctor there saw Robert that was breathing and he could walk and he could talk and let him go.
Although he had no place to go.
“We’ve realized there lack of services available for seniors who can not advocate for themselves. A lot of homeless people in Northumberland County are seniors. And seniors are the type of people that will not always ask for help.
Or don’t know that there is help out. There is a pride. I can’t say enough about the Help Centre.”
The story of what this group has done has gone up the chain at the LCBO, and they have been donating as well toward the next chapter of Rob’s life. He’s arriving in New Brunswick with basically nothing but optimism and hope for his remaining years, he said, and his family will have to provide everything from the ground up. There’s a GoFundMe page, which they’re hoping members of the community will support.
Interviewed on his last day at the Lotus Motel, Robert said he always tried to stay positive.
“Just keep pushing. There’s always a better day,” he said.
As for the people at the LCBO, “thank God for that. They’re amazing.”
