Through one man's death, two strangers forge a connection
December 17, 2015 was a typically cold, rainy Vancouver winter day. Kate Perkins was walking into work
when she noticed a young man slumped over on the bench outside her office.
Kate thought the man might be in medical distress, so she tried to rouse him, but he didn't respond. She called the paramedics, who got there fast.
"They had him on the ground in seconds and had started to work on him. I remember standing there very quietly thinking, 'Come on, kid. Just, come on.'"
Bailey Townsend died of a drug overdose that day. He was 28-years-old and had been living on the streets of Vancouver.
Kate went to work, but her mind kept wandering to Bailey.
"This was a week before Christmas, and I knew a mom was going to get a call to say that her son was gone. I have an 18-year-old son and I put myself in her shoes and it was heartbreaking."
"Bailey was a wonderful guy, a heart of gold," said Cindy. "His problems just overcame him."
"He loved life, he was just lost."
Almost instantly after Bailey died, Cindy knew she wanted to find the person who found him on the bench in downtown Vancouver, "to thank them and to tell them about my son."
"Homelessness — people just walk past and ignore, and look the other way. And for someone to stop, that could be a scary situation for somebody. Knowing that somebody did stop and did try to help meant the world to me."
Cindy contacted a newspaper columnist in Vancouver who wrote a story about her and her son, and asked the unknown person to come forward.
Kate's boss forwarded her the link to that story.
"As I read it, it was like you were sitting next to me, just letting me know who your son was, and I totally understood why you'd reached out. And I bawled. Like loud, ugly-cry bawl. Just to share something that was quite so profound."
Kate and Cindy exchanged a few emails. Then Kate lost Cindy's address. This interview on Out in the Open was the first time the two women had been in touch in over a year — and the first they had ever spoken to each other.
Kate still questions what it was that made her stop and take a closer look at Bailey.
"A part of it was thinking, maybe it is one of those times (when someone needs medical help). And maybe the other is Bailey himself, reaching out to say, You're going to need to help my mom in whatever way I could."
This story appears in the Out in the Open episode "Perfect Strangers". It originally aired on May 7, 2017.