After spending 30 years on streets, this man’s life turned over after a citation with an Alameda County deputy sheriff. A change of luck altered his life and overturned the future he was expecting. It marked the beginning of a new life that no one could have imagined for the man who was never acknowledged by the passers-by. What could have happened?
Starting Off
As a child, Mick Myers was adopted by a kind and generous family in San Leandro, California. This easy-going child had nothing to do in others’ business. During his high school, he used to get along with everyone and used to play in the marching band.
Mick’s home situation wasn’t as good as his life outside of it was. His parents tried to make him feel as if he was part of the family but that wasn’t the same with the other members of the family. They treated Mick as if he was an outsider and weren’t happy with his presence in the house.
Living A Life Of A Loner
His mother was particularly very concerned about Mick and took extra care of him. However, he never connected with the rest of the members of his family. He became an introverted person as he started to keep things to himself.
He started to feel isolated and alone; this is what followed him into adulthood. Things kept getting worse when his friends go out of touch.
Loner All This While
Myers didn’t know that he was adopted until he turned 16 and that is when things became clear to him. He understood why he never connected with the siblings at the home. When his parents passed away, the bond he had established with the siblings didn’t sustain.
Myers’ whole family turned his back towards him and now he was all alone. He had to figure out a way to start a new life.
Losing All Hope
When no one came to his rescue, Myers had to find a job and he started working as a truck driver. It was the perfect job for a person like him. He wouldn’t have to interact with many people and becoming friends with someone was not required in this field.
It was becoming difficult for him to cope up with the loneliness and it became too much to bear at a point. The occupation he was in, might have been mundane but it did a decent job of paying bills.
But even that job didn’t stay with him for long.
Headed Towards The Road
Once Myers lost the job, he couldn’t find the next one. That is when he started to live on the road. He continued to live this life for 30 years and according to him, that was it for him. To feed him, he played guitar and sometimes even panhandled around the East Bay area.
Weeks turned into months, months turned into years, and he couldn’t get out of the zone of poverty. However, what he had not imagined was that he would meet someone someday and his life would change for better.
One Person Noticed
He said, “Most of the people just hurry by and don’t even give me a glance.” And frankly that was the truth, no one would pay attention to his presence while he panhandled. However, there was one person who had noticed him and it was deputy Sheriff Jacob Swalwell of Alameda County.
He would stop to warn him to stop bothering people for money. Myers was not a threat to anyone but Swalwell was doing his duty and Myers had no other way to feed himself. Swalwell realized that it was time for him to take serious action.
Final Warning
The officer realized that it was enough and he had to give a serious last warning to Myers for his actions. He didn’t stop panhandling around the town and so the officer thought to make the matter official. However, he needed an ID to make the same.
Swalwell said, “I had given him so many warnings, and I asked him for his ID and he said he didn’t have an ID. And I immediately asked, ‘Why don’t you have an ID?’” That is where the story took a wild turn.
Conversations Started Off
Swalwell had expected him to be a nuisance character on the road but when he started talking to the man on the streets, he realized that he had some wrong assumptions about the not so harmful man.
Most people assume that people land on streets due to bad habits but Myers’ case was a different one. While talking to a local channel, Swalwell said, “I learned more, that he was disabled and had been homeless for 30 years. He was not an alcoholic, he did not use drugs, he did not use tobacco. He was just a senior citizen on his own.”
What was is a fault in all this?
Change In Opinion
And the change of heart! Myers explained that there was no place he could call home and didn’t have access to social security as he didn’t have an ID. After listening to the whole story, he said, “Well, you’ve got someone to help you now.”
Myers thought he would start to get his life sorted by getting him an ID issued. However, he didn’t know what he was getting into.
The Hurdles
Anyone who has applied for a license knows how difficult it is to deal with the DMV. When Swalwell started off with the documentation he realized that there was no record under the name of Mick Myers.
The process was way more complicated that the Sheriff had anticipated. The authorities told that an array of paperwork would be required for getting a new license and Swalwell knew that Myers wouldn’t be able to provide any of that. However, he didn’t give up.
Proof Of Residency
The authorities told the two men that they would need proof of residency for the state of California. As Myers didn’t have the previous license, he needed his birth certificate and two added documents that declared him the resident of California. Unfortunately, he didn’t have any of the required documents.
Myers wasn’t shocked by the denial of license; he was used to the negative response to everything and even Sheriff hadn’t given up. They needed to find out a way to get him a proof of residence.
Not Throwing In The Towel
Swalwell knew that there was no backing out of this, all he wanted was a backup. He contacted his personal pastor to help Myers and get him proof of residence. Along with that, he involved himself in a more important task and it was to find Mick’s birth certificate.
After detailed searching, Swalwell found the long-lost document that revealed his real name. His biological parents had named him Gordon Michael Oakley. However, they still didn’t know if Myers would get a photo ID or not.
Mutual Understanding
After rigorous efforts, Swalwell got a photo ID. When a local channel got to know about the story of a kind gesture, they decided to cover it. Hence, there was a feature based on the duo. Swalwell said, “We both realized at the same time that there is a real person there and not just the stereotype we saw when we first met each other.”
He further explained, “If it’s something as simple as helping them just to get them back on their feet by getting them an ID so they can get some state or government, federal benefits, then it’s the least we can be doing as law enforcement officers.”
This is when someone special entered his life.
Catching The Attention
When the local channel ran a feature on him, a private investigator, Mark Askins couldn’t stop himself from taking an interest in his life. He was then working for Miracle Messages, a non-profit organization that worked to reunite homeless people to their long-lost families.
When the case reached Askins, he reached out to Myers and showed his interest in solving this case. Myers with a lonely past knew that no one could find anything about his past and allowed Askins to dig in and find whatever he’d like to. The moment Myers was on-board, Askins got to work.
Digging In
Once he started off, there was no looking back. On the basis of his original name that was discovered by the long lost birth certificate, Askins started running his research. After reading almost all the cases, he came across two names that caught his attention.
He had turned thousands of pages of ledgers and two names struck his mind. “Wiley Albert Oakleyand Maria Pauline Oakley” were the names written on a ledger and Askins was brewing with curiosity on reading that. He got to work and he could see the complete past of Myers in front of his eyes.
The Birth Mother
After going through the ledger, Askins knew that Marie Pauline Oakley was the birth mother and her past was not an easy one. At an early age of 16, she met a sailor, Wiley Albert Oakley. They fell in love and got married. The couple then moved to Tennessee and their story took the wildest turn.
In her words, “The cabin was ramshackle. The cracks in the wall were so wide that snakes and other animals would come in.” She had a newborn with her and she couldn’t go out to make money and feed themselves.
Fighting For Herself
Her husband gave all his naval pay to his mother and nothing was left for Maria and her baby. Her words in the report read, “There was a bed for me to sleep in, but there was no crib for the baby. I had to put two chairs together and put a food locker on it.”
Her mother in law gave her the money that was just enough to buy baby food solutions. There was a time when Maria used to be hungry and she would steal from the neighbor’s garden. That is when she realized that the baby deserved a better life than this. She packed her bags, went back to her mother in California and took a decision for herself and the baby.
Gordon Michael Oakley
When the mother arrived in the Eastern bay of California, Maria was again pregnant and had a newborn with her. Her other didn’t recognize her as she had turned thin, pale, and ragged. Her report read, “My life was not what I expected out of a marriage.”
Her mother then filed for an annulment and soon after that, she gave birth to her second child, Gordon Michael Oakley. However, this happiness was short-lived.
Left With No Choice
At the age of two, the little boy was diagnosed with a hole in the stomach. The disheartened mother had to take a decision of giving up her baby. Sonn, she realized that a family from the church was looking for a baby to adopt and due to lack of resources, Marie had to take this hard decision.
The baby she had given up was Mick Myers and the mother had never expected to know what had become of her child.
Found After 60+ Years
Mick was an old man in his early 60s and there was no hope of him meeting his mother again. Askins was on the journey of finding is Marie was still alive or not. He found out that she was still alive and it was now time for them to find out her residence.
Askins wanted to make sure that the Marie he had traced down was Mick’s mother. He found out that she was living by the name Polly and was living near Humboldt County. When he came in touch with her, she told him about the son she had given up.
In 65 Years
Molly came to know about her son who was still alive and living on the streets. She was happy to know about his living son. They first contacted over telephonic conversation and they both were overjoyed. It was after years that Mick was hearing “My Son” and it was an out of the world feeling.
After the fateful call, Myers took a flight to meet his mother.
Not Just The Mother
After the plane landed, he was greeted by a woman named Shannon. She said, “I’d be your niece” and this piece of information left him shocked. He didn’t just get a mother after all these years but it was a whole family that he was meeting.
After struggling through her early years, Marie had remarried and had children and even great-grandchildren. Everyone welcomed Myers in the family with a warm heart. After all these years of loneliness, he found a warm home for himself.
Reunited
Even before crossing the door, Polly had him in her arms. They embraced each other in a long time. Myers had brought some stuff for Polly and it included his guitar, a gift from Deputy Sheriff, and his high school yearbook.
Myers was elated to meet his family and there were tears of joy. He said, “Who’d have thought that something like this could have happened to anybody – let alone me!” However, it wasn’t just the mother who was moved by this reunion.
Eye-Opening Experience
Deputy Sheriff Swalwell had changed their lives by getting him an ID proof. The two were grateful to him and his act of kindness. He understood that it was the struggles of life that made Myers come on the streets and live a miserable life.
Swalwell said, “It has opened my eyes to others in Mick’s situation.” Askins, the investigator, agreed to it and said, “All of us is family all of us is somebody’s someone.”
But the story didn’t end here.
Loving Family
After the reunion, the family was in high spirits. However, Myers had to return back to Alameda country. They planned to meet in the future on vacation and she even invited him to live with her and her husband. He planned to move to Humboldt County and he even had an ID so it was going to be easier for him to get a job.
A kind gesture of a Sheriff and thorough research of an investigator took Myers to his birth family and changed his life forever.
