December 14, 2009

• Losing a Friend

  I found out this morning that one of my Meals on Wheels clients died last Friday.  He was 93, and, apparently, his death was about as easy and peaceful as death can be.  He just kind of slipped away into eternity.

  This man was something else.  He’d always be waiting for me in his back yard, and I’d pull up to his gate.  His house is on a corner lot on a busy street, so I’d pull up to the gate on his side yard.  He was always outside working on his truck, cutting grass, or doing something.  He seemed to always have his work gloves on, which came in handy when I handed him the hot meals for him and his wife.  The last five or six weeks one of his sons got the meals for his parents, so something must have been going on.

  The man was a brick mason all his life, and at age 90 he built himself a brick mailbox that is truly something to be proud of.  And he was.  He was always cheerful and always ready with a smile or a laugh, and, over the six years that I’ve been delivering meals to him, I really got to like him.  We’d tease each other the way men do, and we’d both laugh.  I didn’t know him all that well, but I liked what I knew.  I didn’t have a meal for his wife today because their children are taking care of her.  I looked in the paper today for an obituary, but there wasn’t one.  Maybe there will be one tomorrow.

  Good bye, my friend.  You enriched my life and inspired me by knowing you.  I pray that you’re reaping your reward in heaven, but I pretty much know you are.

  ED

  • 10:26 pm
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