In 1999, I agonized over not attending JoniFest but my former partner
was "formering" himself in the weeks prior and I moved into my new and
still current apartment during JoniFest 99.
In 2000, I felt badly about not being able to attend but major financial
considerations and the White Sox in first place in Chicago had me going
west to Chicago to stay free with friends and go to the games, a much
cheaper option.
This year I never gave the prospect of going to JoniFest a second
thought, I wasn't going. Before you react in horror, please know that I
have been a Christian long enough to believe in the zen of everything
and I just knew beyond doubt that I was not to go to Topsfield this
year, I just had to await the reason.
Richard Simpson suffered from paranoid schizophrenia and had been cast
away by his family and came to Greenville in 1994, homeless and all
dis-associated from life. My type of person!
Richard was the reason that we really got our ministry here directed
towards people in adult foster care, and Richard was my mainstay, my
charter member, my saint of the church. Needed to check in with Richard
almost daily for a variety of reasons including making sure that his
medication was allowing him to stay in balance with the real world as he
wanted to be since his dis-connect moments were very frightening and
violently threatening to him. Richard, despite that, was the sweetest,
gentlest, kindest person that I have ever known and became my daily
friend, my everyday church member, the saint of our mission. He was
such a good person and 3 1/2 months ago was diagnosed with leukemia that
would kill him in 4 months but suffice to say it took only 3 1/2 months.
Since the zen told me that I wasn't going East but staying in the area,
it turned out the reason was to be with Richard when he died and to do
his funeral and to deal with the other residents of his AFC home who are
of course mourning him and all of Richard's relatives who showed up for
the funeral (but were never there for his life) and all the issues that
raised, including issues for the community in Greenville ("what the hell
are they showing up for now?" was said more a few times). For the
family, we knew the Richard that they never knew (and that was true
conversely) and just very simply, it was a time of much emotion.
But I needed to be here it seemed, Richard died Friday morning when I
would have been leaving and we buried him today when I would have been
returning so the zen had it right of course all along, this was not to
be the year to go to Topsfield. And yes, in between the moments that I
was here with Richard and all that went with that, I was in Chicago
also, needed to connect with my sister who is in an adult foster care
home and it was very important to me for me to be with her and not to be
like Richard's family, one of those who was never there. And I got a
few ball games in too with some good friends and I needed those moments.
I debated posting this - self indulgent on my part, a downer in the
midst of your high? - but I hadn't been able to explain my blasi "I'm
not going" because the zen hadn't unfolded that reason, which i know
have.
Richard and I had spoken 8 days before his death - he knew it was a
matter of a very few days, his body was worn out. I had been living
with the knowledge that every time that I saw Richard may well be the
last time that I would see him and we were talking days, not months, not
years.
The antepenultimate time that I saw Richard was Thursday last, and he
was at the office, and in the gentle way he always said, "Pastor, can I
talk with you?" he told me that I was to always pray for the people with
cancer, with AIDS, with leukemia, with emphysema, and with asthma, and
with everyone who was sick because he knew how difficult it was for
these people.
Then he told me that what he had learned was that it was important to
always pray for others and not for your self, because when we always
pray for our self, we forget that others are in such need.
He remarked that it was a beautiful day and what could he do to make it
better?
And he asked me, what can I do for someone else today?
That all was said less than 24 hours before his death. He left the
office, visited the people downtown that he usually saw, went home,
drove another resident around the lake because that second resident is
not otherwise able to get to see the lake, and then he got the 24-hour
flu and he had nothing left to fight it with, as weak as he was from
fighting the leukemia. He went into the hospital.
The penultimate time that I saw Richard was Friday morning as he lay
dying in the hospital, unconscious, in pain, and we did our singing and
praying and the commendation service and Richard relaxed and fell asleep
and died peacefully without pain.
The last time that I saw Richard was this morning, and of course his
cold and embalmed body was but a pale reflection of the friend that I
knew, but his family was finally there, his friends were all there, and
we were celebrating that the good things that he thought us about how to
live and the good place where he wa now, with God, however that "with
God-ness" is defined, and I ws able to bury my friend and the last
thing that I could for him on this earth - other than spend hours
afterwards with the family who had never been there and were now feeling
a grief that they never given him another chance, a guilt that I suspect
they will never resolve. Pastor as I am, I tried to stress to them in
those hours that the past is just a good bye (where did I get that line,
CSN&Y fans!!! ), that they needed to live in grace, in forgiveness, and
remember Richard's question - what can I do for someone today - and go
forward with that question in their lives, and act on it, rather than
remain in a place of guilt and pain and regrets.
The journey home is a long one. For those who were in Topsfield, I am
thankful that there was safe journey for all and that the community was
- as we knew it would be - good, great, fantastic, and that it would
bind people together in this community of love. I thought about you all
all weekend and rejoiced for you that you could be together and share in
the gifts that you have. You did it for yourselves as well as for those
of us not there, writing another chapter in life in our JMDL community.
I love you all.
For me, the journey home back to having to deal with work and and the
life that we shall have without Richard stopping in the office daily
with his good cheer, with his questions, with his urging me to do
various things for people in need, for what worship and our ministry
community life without his physical presence - that will be a long
journey.
You are the people with whom I can share things for which I have no
other community for sharing things of this nature. You are like my
"community of real-world people" that I need. I needed to speak with
you and explain my absence that the zen long ago had told me would keep
me in this area now that the explanation had been revealed, and to say
the things that I have no one here to say them to so that I can now cry
myself and return to my daily life tomorrow. Thank you as always for
your friendship and your indulging me.
(the Rev) Vince
