Father Paul reminds me we shouldn’t judge Jesus and Christianity by his groupies.” He smiled as if just remembering. “My father wrote me a letter last week. ‘Have you made your peace with God?’ he wanted to know. I wrote back, ‘We’ve never quarreled.’” He chuckled again to himself. I could detect no bitterness in him, no sadness, no self-pity, which given the circumstances, could have been forgiven.
“You appear to be at peace,” I said. I was feeling a kind of envy.
“I have my moments. This is one of them,” he said. “You have family around here?”
“Yes . . . We have our issues, too.” Then I added, “My partner died three months ago. I’m familiar with the routine: the nausea, the diarrhea, the medications. I know the drill. So, if I can be of help . . .”
“Thanks, but I have wonderful brothers and sisters here who are caring for me. Like many of us, I had to find a new family who would love and accept me for who I am. I feel very fortunate to have their support. Why would I want to go back to Tulsa? No,” he shook his head heavily, “they can have my ashes.”
I paused before speaking again. “I’m not sure I can be what people here need right now.”
“I know you have your issues to work through. Sandy told me. You should know there are no secrets among this staff.” He smiled. “Father Paul is always saying that we, each of us, is here for some reason. For some purpose. Do you believe in God?”
“ . . . I’m no longer sure.”
“I do. Now. I didn’t for much of my life. Being born in the Bible Belt, I naturally developed an early aversion to Christianity. But through this epidemic, through my work, I’ve rediscovered my faith. And, too, dying puts a different spin on things. Wait and see.”
I nodded. Sure, maybe I’ll wait and see.
Then he said something that surprised me. “We’re very fortunate, you know. To be here, to be part of this.”
I murmured noncommittally. Fortunate wasn’t exactly the word I would use to describe these past ten years.
“There are few jobs, I think, that take one into the very heart of life, that allow us to accompany people through their dying and put us in touch with our own spiritual depths.”
His eyes shone once again with that strange luminosity, as if already catching the light of some supernal realm they were about to enter.
“This epidemic has done wonderful things for our souls. I’ve had more and deeper experiences in the past thirteen years than most people would have in a lifetime. I’ve seen the best in a man rise up, surprising even himself. I’ve witnessed such bravery and courage, such acts of self-sacrifice and compassion that are usually only found on a battlefield. I’ve seen the soul pass out of a man with his last breath. I swear I did; it was a small puff of vapor and light. It sounds strange, I know, and I don’t always feel like this, but I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.” He looked down at his shaking hand. “When all is considered, the body is a small price to pay, don’t you think?”
I smiled with some embarrassment. “Careful. You’re almost sounding like a saint.”
He sighed. “Yes, I’ve got to watch that.”
I could tell he was fatigued. His voice was hoarse, his breathing labored. I made movements to leave. “I should probably be going.”
“I’ve enjoyed our talk. I hope we’ll have more opportunities. Some people center me simply by being in their presence. You’re one of them. Father Paul is another.”
“I was thinking the same of you. Well, I’ll let you get back to writing your eulogy.”
As I stood to leave, he said, “A favor?”
“Name it.”
“When my time comes— or rather, when my time is up— I expect there’ll be many people attending my memorial service.”
“I expect there will.”
“I’d like you not to be there.”
I blinked.
“On that day, go off by yourself. Climb some mountain. Eat an orange in my honor and recall the times we’ll have shared together. Whisper my name to the wind, and say good-bye.”
Tears were welling up, and I said softly, “I promise,” then turned and left.
• • •
In the few months Cal had remaining, we spoke often, when he was in the office and feeling up to it. And when he no longer could make it into the office, I would visit him at home, and then in the hospital, and then in hospice. We shared a common philosophical bent and had great conversations, about life and death and the possibility of a human soul, about some kind of afterlife, or a cycle of incarnations, cycling, cycling, forever cycling toward perfection. Perhaps what made these discussions so special was that we knew one of us was very close to the end of his life, and that both of us were facing unknown futures.
Almost in spite of himself, Cal remained a saint to the end, playing his role on how to die fully conscious and with dignity. He had been right. His memorial service, held in the downtown Unitarian Church, had standing room only. Attending were his staff, his board of directors, the mayor and members of the city council; the governor had come up from Salem; hundreds of clients and volunteers and friends were there to say good-bye. He was forty-five years old.
On that day in early May, I climbed Table Mountain out in the Columbia Gorge. The day was especially clear, the wildflowers spreading across the hillsides like confetti following one’s going-away party. I reached the summit in the afternoon, grateful to have it to myself, and sat there, shirt off, feeling the sun on my back, the breeze murmuring in my ears like the faint whispers of distant ancestors. I peeled my orange, eating it slowly as I recalled Cal and this brief time our paths had come together— while remembering another farewell, not that long ago, staring up into a star-filled sky arcing over the Bogong High Plains. A different sky, a different hemisphere, the same grief. Immensity, whether a starry tapestry overhead or sitting atop some mountain, is a good antidote to sorrow and death.
I withdrew from my daypack an old battered collection of the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay. The cracked binding fell open to the page, as if the volume knew what the moment required. To me, the words had become an anthem for this modern plague.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
I sat there, watching the sun cross the sky, watching the great river flow, metaphorically like time, down to the sea of eternity, until day’s end nudged me with a chilling touch. I closed the book, replacing it in the pack, slipped on my shirt, and stood looking over the Gorge as the sun, like some fellow traveler, began taking its leave into the west. I whispered Cal’s name. Here we go our separate ways, my friend. Godspeed on yours. Then set off down the mountain to continue my own journey, alone.
His
