We were
both fathers of daughters. We both married Jewish women
Our daughters
met some time in the early grades of the local public schools. Our wives
belonged to the local Jewish congregation, and Richard and I took part in the
congregation's activities as involved "fellow travelers," Richard
embracing these, as he did so many things, with a whole and open heart.
One of the
first things I learned when Anne and I began spending time with Nancy and
him was that Richard would keep us entertained. He was a storyteller. Of growing up
in his extended Italian family, he once told us of his grandfather's habit of exploring
the distant corners of this vegetable garden and then deciding that his wife
needed to climb down three flights of stairs to turn on the water for his
garden hose. Richard demonstrated both the manner of these imperious padrone-like commands
and his grandmother Francesca's infuriated obedience, huffing, puffing, and
muttering all the way down the stairs.
Naturally
Richard, being Richard, devised some way to rig up an extension so
that Francesca could turn on the water for the garden hose without having to climb down and up those rickety old stairs.
Richard
also told us about serving in Vietnam, recounting a stretch of nighttime
sentry duty that would scare anybody to death, and of his efforts to persuade some
of his underprivileged fellow draftees to go with him to the camp movies when they
were screening a film that might show them something about life. Richard's decision to
serve in armed forces had been a difficult one; this was a subject of considerable
personal interest to me since I had done all I could to stay out of the army in
those days.
In our
own ways both of us got through that difficult era, found someone to love,
became fathers. And as devoted daddies we both drew pleasure from sharing our
interests with our daughters. At Richard's Memorial Service last week, his
daughter Karen recalled the nightly sessions in which her father read to her all
the way through "The Lord of the Rings" -- for what seemed like
years. I prescribed the same medicine to both of our children. Sonya never
seemed troubled by the length of the tale, though she felt profoundly betrayed
by its imperfectly happy ending.
Thinking of
Richard last week, I recalled some words from that book about the prospect of
life "ending," shared by the wizard Gandalf to Pippin, the least
thoughtful of the doughty Hobbits as the two face the prospect of death from
the evil invading horde.
PIPPIN: I didn't think
it would end this way.
GANDALF: End? No, the journey
doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The
grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and
then you see it.
PIPPIN: What? Gandalf? See
what?
GANDALF: White shores, and
beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.
PIPPIN: Well, that isn't so
bad.
GANDALF: No. No, it isn't.
So now I
can envision Richard on another path, one we will all someday take, exploring
"the white shores" and the "far green country."
Still,
that's not quite the last word on the subject, because what we do in
this world, on this path, however long or short our stay, matters.
In
describing Richard to those who didn't know him, Anne and I point out that after he
retired from the federal Health and Human Services department, he volunteered
for a local human service that provided nighttime winter shelter for the
homeless in Plymouth churches. Helping out here was not just a matter of
writing a check, we told Anne's mother, but providing the supervision necessary
to keep the program going.
"He
stayed with them at night?" Anne's mother asked.
"Yes."
"Then
he was a good man."
That seems
to sum it up. Whether you heard it from his brothers, his co-workers, or
some acquaintance whose car broke down, the bottom line was that Richard always
helped people. He was a good man.
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