A Life Remembered, and a Still-Nourishing Meal

It has long been my custom to browse the obituaries each day. It is a practice born neither of morbid curiosity nor to establish, according to the old joke, my own absence there. It is, instead, my dread of failing to note the passing of someone who has graced my days with their own. We are shaped, I learned along the way, at least in part by those we bump up against, and I don't take those caresses and abrasions for granted.

Most days those memorial pages are filled, to my relief, with photographs and names unfamiliar to me. Today, however, my discipline was sadly rewarded. Don, I learned, had passed away, after a brief illness, at 77.

Perhaps it's just the way the universe works — sending out "dog whistles" lost on most ears, but in frequencies registered by those who need to hear them — but I was only recently telling of my acquaintance with Don, at a gathering of friends on New Year's Eve, the day before, as it turns out, he died.

Don Loomis lived across the alley from the church I served, in one of those unfortunate apartments carved out of an old and once prouder house on a weary street in the college neighborhood. Somewhere in or close to his 60's, Don lived happily and independently, despite the fact that he had lived his first 33 in a state institution. That circumstance had more to do with his mother's shortcomings than Don's, and though institutionalization had certainly left its scars, Don made his way without resentment or regrets, funded primarily I suppose by government assistance of one kind or another. Most semesters would find him telling his story dispassionately to sociology students at the university, answering questions, laying his life bare, less to garner sympathy than to proudly note that nevertheless he had thrived.

Every year Don hosted a Thanksgiving feast. As a regular on his social circuit — he would stop by my office to talk — I was routinely invited, but I managed to find exempting excuses. I couldn't imagine a meal in Don's dingy apartment, and, I'm deeply ashamed to admit it, in the company of what I presumed would be Don's dingy friends.

But one year, perhaps 10 years ago, I ran out of excuses. Don had stopped by asking to borrow some tables and chairs for the annual feast, and as it turned out, some money for the turkeys. And then came the inevitable invitation. I caved. I accepted. I grudgingly entered the date and time in my planner. Eventually the dreaded date arrived. With a deep breath and deeper trepidation I picked my way across the alley and located Don's "front door". Inside, several of the guests had already arrived — college students, mostly; and recent college graduates who had developed a fondness for and friendship with Don by living in the neighborhood, in very similar "unfortunate apartments", and sharing previous meals. Some had come back into town for this occasion. Some had brought their parents who were visiting from out of town. Perhaps 20 of us in all, crowded together around worn church tables and peeling card tables, quizzing each other about "how do you know Don," and settling into this unusual hospitality.

Don was meanwhile finishing up the dinner preparations — stirring, carving, ladling. Eventually we were called to attention, I awkwardly offered a Thanksgiving Prayer, and the meal was served. The tables were were covered, decorated, and set with plates and flatware and cups...and at each place setting a brown paper lunch bag enclosing an orange, an apple, and some nuts — a party favor of sorts.

It was a heart-meltingly tender evening: this man of meager means and limited story, the benefactor to fresh-faced, expensively educated twenty-somethings, their affluent parents, and a shame-faced hypocritical pastor he had endearingly befriended. All of us, gathered at Don's table, in each other's keeping and Don's, grateful. It was, in a word, beautiful. Or to choose a better one, it was holy. It was as close to the Kingdom of God — the Feast of Heaven — as I am likely to get in this life.

I drifted out of touch after that. Don returned the tables and chairs, he continued to stop by from time to time, but eventually he moved to western Iowa to be closer to family members. But I've never forgotten that evening — the gift of grace he selflessly and matter-of-factly extended, and the unlikely assortment of people convened there to receive it. And I've often wondered what became of him.

Now I know: he continued to live, continued to thrive, continued to tell his story, and then he died.

In the American narrative, Don's story would scarcely earn a word, let alone mention by name. In the American economy, Don would, by any calculation, be averred a "drain," a "liability".

Math, of course, has never been my strength, but I would add him up very differently — as one, nonplussed, who gave far-better than he got.

And in more ways than one, he fed us.