Mr. Al

A friend was laid to rest yesterday.  I learned that he died through a Facebook post by someone I didn't know, shared by someone I did know.  And I wept.  The flood of emotion surprised me, as we never talked on the phone, visited each other's homes, or saw each other very often.

Twelve years ago, we worked in the same place.  He swept and carried donated goods to the back.  I coordinated payment of overdue bills and wrote food and clothing vouchers.  We'd share a meal on the days I brought enough for two, and he would bless it.  Thanking God for it and asking for protection against sickness from it.  

I don't know if he was paid for his work, or if he was just happy to be of service.  But, there was a misunderstanding along the way, and he stopped coming.  From then on, our meetings were a little more happenstance and much less frequent, but always a delight.  He loved my children and I loved him.

More than a decade has passed since our friendship began.  I never understood how he lived and maybe it was that that kept me from realizing that, one day, he would die?

This makes me feel pretty stupid because I work in hospice and yet, Al's death caught me off-guard and knocked me for a loop.  

 I've heard that all grief is selfish and this sentiment has never been more true.

Selfishly, I wish I would have seen him more recently.  I wish I could have been there with him at the end, or at least in the days preceding.  I wish I could have offered him something, or let him know about the place he held in my heart.  But, my loss is my own.  

He was the epitome of one who died as they lived.  He did it his way.  Alone, outside, under a tree.  By all appearances, he just went to sleep.  And I can't feel sorry for that.  That is a good way to go, if that is the way it best suited you to live the last 30 years of your life.  

I will feel blessed if I am able to walk to the place where I lay down for the last time and someone finds me the next day.  It's the dying over months and years that I want to avoid.  But, I wonder.  Did he know he was so near death?  What was he thinking as he prepared to lay down on the hard ground for the last time?  

Certainly, he did not know that the local media would be covering his funeral with full military honors, or informing all about his stint as an IRS attorney, after serving in Vietnam with the Air Force.

What would he say about that?

I can't help but think he wouldn't have a lot to say.  He'd simply be watching quietly from a distance, on a bench tucked away in the shade.

"...part of the secret of heaven:  that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one."  

Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven