Today we said farewell to another friend.
This one we lost to drug poisoning.
It was a beautiful day for saying goodbye. Our friend, who I will call Seth, made his home (as many unsheltered people do in our town) on the rocky beach, out of sight and out of the way. That's where he was found a couple of weeks ago.
I met Seth when I was volunteering at the local Salvation Army Food Cupboard. I was hosting the Coffee with Friends drop-in time, and Seth always came for coffee. He'd pour his brew, pop a lid on the paper cup, listen for a few minutes to the conversation happening at the table, and then leave. Sometimes he'd come back later for a second cup or to use the phone.
He never sat down or said anything.
Over the past few years, I'd often see him stalking around town on his own. Tall, slender, neatly bearded. Peaked cap. Backpack slung over one shoulder. He was a regular at the coffee shops downtown and later at the church Drop In that I was part of.
Again, he'd come in, grab a coffee, linger for a few minutes, then leave. He very much 'kept himself to himself.'
I've felt kind of bad about not knowing him better, but I found out today that nobody else really did either. He came and went daily and weekly, but we only knew about him what we had observed. What we had experienced. Nothing about his previous life, where he'd come from, how he came to be living in a tent on the beach in this particular town.
So today, the Drop In crew arranged to remember someone we never really met. As we stood at the mouth of the creek, the sun dancing on the lake, the birds singing and the breeze in our hair, we together painted a portrait of someone I wish I knew better.
We each only knew him by his first name.
Between us, we knew that:
He liked three sugars in his coffee.
He was extremely anxious in any size of crowd.
He looked after his health, making sure he took his multi-vitamins regularly.
He had a quiet sense of humour that would sometimes take you by surprise.
He would have conversations with people if they were the only ones in the room.
He looked out for the needs of others.
He would never take something he didn't need, leaving it for someone else who might.
He had a favourite author and enjoyed his novels.
Not much, for someone I've known for 5 or 6 years.
There were 10 or 12 of us there today, a mix of volunteers, unsheltered friends, and others. Reminding each other that Seth was here, and now he wasn't, and the world was impoverished by one Seth's-worth.
I know that for most of us, looking out for people like Seth is a calling. Being out in the highways and byways, eyes and ears open for the needs we encounter, for ways to help or to open doors, or just make friends. I think that most of us wish we could do more. Something bigger.
But we reminded each other today that it is our very smallness that made it possible for Seth to connect to us at all. If we had been a big organization with dozens of volunteers, Seth wouldn't have come through the door. His anxiety would have kept him outside. When he died, we wouldn't have known to care. We wouldn't have gathered today to remember him.
At the end of our little memorial, while some of us discussed which particular circle of Hell belongs to people who put poison in the drugs to which they have kept people addicted, our leader laid flowers in the spot where Seth's tent had been. Where he had died alone, bathed in the music of the waves, the birds and the breeze. Where I trust he fell through the cracks to be caught by everlasting hands.
Another person piled up a little cairn of stones. And we all paused for a moment in silence before the conversation began again, and we walked back down the beach.
To keep being beautifully small. To keep looking and listening and serving. To have our hearts broken again.
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