SALT LAKE CITY – In the center of downtown Salt Lake City, three friends reunited on the sidewalk in front of City Creek Mall. It’s actually the place where they first met three years ago in remarkable circumstances and where they camped aside and begged for money.
Hathaway explained, “In a way, I don’t want to come back here. I hate to see what I was like here but in a way, it’s kind of off,” Hathaway explained.
A friend of the Bhela on the sidewalk with him admitted that he did not think he would come back with happy circumstances. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to leave the streets,” Candice told Madsen.
In April 2017, Corey Hathaway was living with a drug addiction and had been homeless for five years. He broke his arm in a construction accident and took to the streets after becoming addicted to painkillers and then heroin.
Hathaway said, “First you want it. Then it gets to the point where you need to get through it. In the end, I wasn’t myself. I didn’t like myself,” Hathaway said. “The only thing that got me out of it was Michael.”
Michael Hansen found Hathaway when he bent down to give a sleeping homeless man a dollar and realized he had been his best friend since childhood.
“When I looked at him my jaw hit hard on the floor because he was my best friend from elementary school during high school.”
Madsen, a KSL-TV producer, was walking from there and saw friends sharing pizza between the sidewalks. “I watched as much as I was interested and finally I said to one of them, ‘Let’s take a picture.’
Madsen volunteered to take pictures and at the time when they told him they hadn’t seen each other in 14 years. “Then I said, ‘Don’t believe this. I’m a journalist and this is a wonderful story.’
Madsen presented a story about the reunion for KSL-TV and then people from all over the world cheered the friend.
But getting Hathaway off the street was no easy journey.
Hathaway said his fear of addiction and failure, and to bring his family down again, kept him on the streets. “I always wanted a way to be homeless. I didn’t know how,” he said.
The long journey to take Hathaway to the streets finally ended in the spring of 2018, when Hathaway was hospitalized.
“Michael came and blessed me and he’s been on the run ever since,” Hathaway said.
Hannson remembered driving to the hospital and thinking his friend was going to die. But when he gave the blessing he knew his friend could live.
“At the time I knew he would live if he did everything the doctors told him to do,” Hansen said.
It was a miracle that Hathaway was alive. He spent about three months in and out of hospitals for heart, lung and kidney failure. The doctors didn’t think he could stop dialysis without a transplant, but he did.
“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for what doctors and nurses do,” Hathaway said.
Hathaway credited many people for helping bring her back to life – including the dentist who brought her back to her smile. “I can really go food – real food.”
Many friends also encouraged him but at the top of that list – his mother who never gave up hope.
“What else can I say? She’s my mom. Mom is always there for you,” Hathaway said.
The rest of his family was also able to let him go to the past to greet him with much love.
“There is always forgiveness. You have to find a way to achieve it,” Hathaway said.
Since he moved home, Hathaway has apologized profusely and begun to heal many of his relationships – including his relationship with his son. “I’m trying to make it. I can spend as much time with it as possible. Before it was Korea. Now I’m Dad.”
Hansen said his friend is back in the person he trusts in his life. “I’ve seen him live on the sidewalk from here and go home, and you can see how beautiful and changed he is.”
Hathaway said there are other reasons besides addiction that can lead to homelessness. “Everyone has their own story. It made a big difference to me when people would stop and talk to me and accept that I was a man,” he said.
Hansen and Hathaway wanted to do something special to get back and thank everyone who helped them on their journey. They teamed up with Madsen to create an old-fashioned radio show based on their story. You can listen to the show here.
More stories that might interest you
.
