Pubdate: Sun, 20 Jan 2002
Source: Courier, The (LA)
Copyright: 2002 Houma Today
Contact:  http://www.houmatoday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1477
Author: Mike Slaughter, Executive Editor

HER CAUSE OF DEATH WAS PAIN

"In the dawn of the morning there lay the poor little one, with pale cheeks 
and smiling mouth, leaning against the wall."

- -- Hans Christian Andersen

After last Sunday's story about the death of Olivia Roberts, dubbed "the 
lost soul of Park Street" by her friend, I was asked why we gave the story 
so much attention.

More specifically, I was asked why we published an obituary story on the 
passing of a well-known physician inside the paper, when the next day we 
published a lengthy, three-part package on page one about a drug-addicted 
prostitute who died under a bridge.

That's a good question. Here's my best answer.

First, a little explanation about how The Courier handles death notices.

Most people who die are memorialized in a short obituary. The information 
we report comes to us on a form that a funeral home fills out with the 
assistance of family members.

For the death of a prominent community member, the doctor for instance, we 
sometimes go further than the standard obituary. We interview people about 
his life and publish a story under a reporter's byline, but they're usually 
placed near the obituaries.

The story of Olivia Roberts' death was not just a story about one person. 
It was a story that revealed the underbelly of our city.

Olivia, a crack addict who plied the world's oldest trade on Park Avenue, 
was not a prominent member of the community.

In letters from jail, Olivia asked: "Will I ever be somebody?" She would 
never be the person she wanted to be.

She was never going to attend a Chamber of Commerce banquet or be asked to 
join a civic club. She died cold and alone. She died like Hans Christian 
Andersen's "Little Match-Seller," who succumbed to the cold night in a city 
where "Lights were shining from every window, and there was a savory smell 
of roast goose."

Olivia died in such a place on such a night when the temperature dropped 
down to the mid-20s. After 26 long, hard years, she just laid down in the 
dirt and died.

Referred to by a friend as "one of the night zombies," Olivia gained 
prominence in The Courier because her story tells the stories of others who 
have left the light and turned to the dark world of drugs, prostitution and 
lonely death.

If nothing else, such a story brings to life a faceless person who was once 
cradled and nursed and who delighted in her own first steps, birthday 
parties and TV cartoons. Somewhere along the way, people like Olivia fall 
out of the warm ring that surrounds most of us with security and acceptance.

We all start out in life with a clean slate, but we're given different 
opportunities and we travel different roads. People like Olivia, a child 
taken from a broken family and placed in a foster home, sometimes manage to 
beat the odds and do well. Those are the exceptions. People like Olivia 
often end up like Olivia.

Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Dickens wrote of such people in the 
19th century to make it impossible for us to comfortably forget that they 
exist.

In the late 20th century Studs Terkel interviewed a prostitute for his 
well-known book "Working." It told the story of bad choices, exploitation 
and the predictable undoing of a beautiful call girl who was kept in the 
business with money and drugs until her looks ran out. She was walking the 
streets when Terkel found her.

Women of the night walk the streets of Park Avenue in Houma. It's not a 
secret, and they appear not to hide it. It's an unfortunate part of our 
city, and our report on Olivia's death tells us why we should care about 
such things as the illegal drug trade and prostitution. It also tells of 
the need for hugging our children and demanding first-rate foster care for 
children without parents to hug them.

And it reminds us that the street people are, indeed, people - people who 
want to be cared about and who feel pain so deeply that they can just lay 
down and die from it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom