Last Visit to Richard & The Story I Was Not Able to Read to Him

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For our 55th Year high school reunion, coming up within a week now, the Reunion Committee solicited written submissions from all our classmates to include in an electronic Commemorative Book of Memory & Testament.  To encourage our classmates to write and share, periodically we sent out in an email a number of the submissions we received as examples of what our classmates wrote of their thoughts and life events.  The posting below is the sixth that I submitted.

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Last Visit to Richard & The Story I Was Not Able to Read to Him

This is the account of my last trip to Pasadena to visit Richard, a friend from grammar school and high school, in the autumn of 2015, at the care/retirement center where he resided.  He had been there now for a while after he had been transferred from a care facility in the Hollywood area, where I had initially started to visit him.  He was battling liver issues that on the surface of his body, seemed expressed primarily through extremely dry and itchy and painful skin.  To help provide some modicum of additional relief and take his mind off the discomfort of his skin at least for a time, I wrote short simple little stories to read to him, made up from all the stories and events he would tell me of his family and life growing up in Kagel Canyon, a canyon community nestled up in the hills below the San Gabriel Mountains.  He seemed to enjoy the stories and after the first story I read to him, he said, “I resemble those remarks!”, again expressing a developed wit he always had with words.  I wrote the following narrative of my last trip to visit Richard the day of my visit, and the story following the narrative, is the fourth story I composed and would have read to him.

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After Starbucks, I drove to the retirement residence on Delmar Blvd. in Pasadena a few blocks away.  I could have parked right on Delmar in front of the building, actually fairly close to where Richard’s room looked out on the bottom floor, but being a creature of habit and cautious, I turned onto the side street and parked where I normally did alongside the building.  It was a nice day, just a tad cool, but clear and the sun was warm. 

As I walked to the front entrance, I wondered how Richard would be and if he would be awake and responsive, and if he was, then I considered what to say to him to start my visit other than just to tell him I had another story for him.  If he weren’t awake or responsive, then I would stay for a while, quietly pray and read, as long as I was allowed to stay, dependent upon what the caregivers from hospice thought and directed. 

As I walked along the streets to the entrance of the retirement residence, I realized again that whenever I came to visit Richard, I always took in the street scene, the cars, the people walking on the sidewalk, some with dogs, the leaves stirring in the trees along the sidewalk, and anything else that moved.  I always observed with very open eyes the street and all its life, consciously knowing that someday I would also die and yet…life would go on…for the people all around here – on the streets, in the cars, in the houses and apartments across the street, for they would not know me, nor my life, and for the huge part, they would not have the time to have any interest in me, busy as they are with their own lives, even at that point when I was dying.  And for some reason, to me, that knowledge was very comforting to know way ahead of time – I hoped still way ahead of time – for then perhaps I could just enjoy the passing sounds of life around me – especially the voices of children in the distance – as I pass.  That would be nice.

I thought of Richard as I walked.  As part of my “established” routine whenever I came to visit him here, when I entered his room, I always liked opening the sliding door to allow the entrance of the outside air to “freshen” up the room.  I also opened the curtain as much as I could, as much as Richard would allow me to, so that as I sat and visited him, I could see outside and see all the life passing there along the sidewalk and across the street.  But, also, at some level, I was hoping that Richard would also want to look out and see the life outside and know and understand that there was still life around which he could still enjoy and respond to, even though he would, sooner or a little later, as all of us would, leave all this behind, but, of course, probably sooner than me, and sooner than most. 

For I would always want to have a view.  I would always want to see the life outside, on the street, and in the sky and among the clouds, and not only see, but through an open window, also hear the sounds of life, and, perchance, be touched by a soft breeze upon my skin.  Richard never expressed the desire to see outside, but sometimes I would go to the window and described what I saw and what was happening – especially when an emergency vehicle and a fire truck pulled up to the residence – but Richard didn’t seem interested, and his only response to the emergency vehicle was that it came to the residence all the time. That was a little sad to me.  I hadn’t thought of that.

I believe it had once come for him when he had to be briefly hospitalized, oh, maybe a month earlier.  But still it saddened me that he was not interested in life outside his room, because I also came to realize and understand that Richard was also not interested in his Catholic faith, and seemingly not able to be interested really in anything other than the self-focus foisted upon him by the cancer and his pain, yes, but perhaps also through habits of a lifetime.  But I did not know. And I also knew I did not have a full understanding of Richard, for I was aware he had done much volunteer work and even met some of his close friends through his volunteer work, but still…  I would have been more encouraged for Richard if he had wanted to see outside.  However, perhaps this was just me.

When I approached the entrance, I could see on the ground by the door pumpkins and even a few cornstalks bringing a touch of autumn to the residence, and when I went inside, I saw that the lobby and entrance foyer were also happily decorated with autumn items and colors.  I thought that this was actually a nice place to live, if you needed care.  I put my Starbucks coffee down on the counter of the visitor window and began to sign into the guestbook when one of the workers at the front desk asked me whom I was there to see.  I told her I was here to see Richard and that I knew that he was down on the last room on the right, as I thought she wanted to give me directions to his room as the front desk people always did.  But she said that she would get someone to talk to me.  I thought that it might have to do with Richard’s usual mental/awareness in-and-out condition, and I said that I knew that Richard was not always too responsive and that I did not know if he would be awake.  But she asked me to wait.  So I waited, and she went to her phone to get someone to talk to me, saying she was going to call the nurse who was just down the other hall.

 I waited for a moment and then she greeted a nurse walking towards me from just across the front foyer and said the nurse would explain everything to me.  The nurse asked me who I was.  I said I was a good friend of Richard’s from grammar and high school.  She nodded and then said that Richard had died just about an hour ago before I had arrived, and then she paused.  And in my mind, to whatever story about Richard I had been writing in my heart, all I did was slowly put a period at the end.

 I said, “Oh” and then after a moment, I asked something about his dying, but I don’t remember exactly what I said, but the nurse told me he died peacefully and without any pain.  My mind went silent as I thought of the finality of those words describing the final hours, the final minutes, of Richard’s life, at least Richard’s life here on earth. I thought with stillness in my mind, how it must be to slip peacefully into eternity but without really expecting it or preparing for it, or knowing it was happening.  I wondered if Richard was conscious when his body died.  I wondered if he died as he would have wanted to die.

The thought crossed my mind that I should perhaps asked the nurse if I can go down to see Richard one last time, but I realized that Richard wasn’t there anymore and that the hospice workers were probably already preparing Richard by to be taken away to the mortuary. 

The nurse told me that they were still trying to get a hold of and make contact with the power of attorney to inform her of Richards’s death and to verify the arrangements for the body.  There is always the business of death to take care of.  I realized that I was the first of Richards’s friends to know of his death and the last person to actually sign in as a visitor to visit him, but of course, I was too late to find Richard still home, still within his earthly body.  I did go and sign out as I thought about this, slightly amused at how I always liked putting in the final punctuation to all things in my life.  I stopped at the front desk and said goodbye to the manager and thanked her for all the things that she had done for Richard and for his guests when we had visited.  I don’t know if she received many thanks.

I put my Starbucks coffee down near the guestbook, used the guest bathroom on the other side of the foyer, retrieved my coffee, and then walked out the front entrance.  I texted David to tell him that Richard had died as I wanted him to know right away as he had been making arrangements to come to see Richard the following day at noon.  I didn’t want to forget to tell him and have him make the trip for nothing, for Richard was no longer here.

As I walked back to my car, I again became very conscious of the life all around me, life that I love and appreciate as a magnificent gift from the Lord.  I then thought of how Richard was no longer part of this life but was in a different life, a life defined somehow by his life here on earth.  I was not in grief.  I was not incapacitated. There was rather a sobering focus on the Lord and a deep thankfulness to Him for His grace and mercy and compassion and infinite love in my own life and for humankind as a whole.

When I got to my car, I realized that I had not had the opportunity to tell Richard the last story I had prepared for him, and so as I drove away for the last time from the retirement residence on Delmar Blvd. in Pasadena, I again went over the story, and this is the last story I composed for Richard, but the one which he did not hear.

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Little Round Richard of Kagel Canyon & Going into the Church for the First Time

The drive down the canyon was fast, always a little too fast Little Round Richard thought as he held on to the car seat as they rounded one of the too many curves on the road on the way down.

“But Papa, why am I going to go to the Catholic school?  We aren’t Catholic, as far as I know, and we don’t go to church.”

“Because it is a good school for you,” his father said never taking his eyes off the road.  “You are very lazy at school and the good nuns will make you work harder and you will learn more.  Besides some of our family goes to church.  Your Aunt Lucia goes to church and to mass every Sunday.”

“But Papa, you don’t really like Aunt Lucia,” Little Richard said, closing his eyes as they went around another curve very fast.  “And you say Aunt Lucia going to church does her no good.”

“Yes, it does her no good, but she would even be worse if she didn’t go.  In addition, you will even do worse in school if you don’t go to the Catholic school.  The nuns will make you learn, and will make you study, and will make you sit up straight in your desk, and they will not let you be lazy.  So, it is very good for you to go to the Catholic school.”

“How will they make me not be lazy?”, Round Richard said a little worried.

“I don’t know,” his father said, finally down from the canyon and driving on the straight road towards San Fernando.  “But I know they know how to keep lazy boys from being lazy.  You will work hard and you will do well in school.  The nuns will see to that.”

Little Round Richard now thought of all the things the nuns could do to him to make him not be lazy, and none of the things he thought were very good.  Maybe they wouldn’t let him eat his lunch.  That would be very bad.

Soon they arrived at St. Ferdinand’s church and the school.  They parked in the middle of the school playground, his father’s little truck seeming to be even smaller in the middle of the yard.

Little Richard and his father walked to the school office where they met the principal, a very tall nun in a black and white nun dress with a cross with Jesus on it around her neck.  Richard, even though he was a little round, felt very small in front of her and all he did was say quietly yes or no to questions she asked of him because he wondered if she was the nun who was going to make him not be lazy.  Already he knew he was going to have to work harder at this school.

After the meeting with the tall nun principal, his father told Richard to look around the school, and go to the church to see what everything was like, while he walked to the post office and other stores to take care of some business in town.

As his father instructed him, Round Richard walked around the L-shaped school but only on the outside and there really wasn’t much to see except two rows of classrooms, so then Richard walked over to the church, which was a much larger building and much more interesting with two towers, one taller than the other.

Richard opened one of the front big wooden side doors and walked into the silent church.  Big windows were high up on the walls on either side, but the light in the church was soft and the inside was a little dim, but up in front on both sides of the altar, a few candles were burning and even though the candle lights were small, they shined as living lights in the dimness of the big inside of the church.

So, Richard walked slowly down the middle aisle of the church.  Upfront four golden twisting columns separated three statues of people Richard did not know, but in the middle, there was a man with the robes seeming to flow in a breeze that Richard knew must be Jesus.  And way up on top of the altar, there on a big cross, was another statue of Jesus on a cross.

And as Richard walked closer to the front, he could smell something sweet, almost like honey, rising from the burning candles on his left and on his right.  He looked at all the statues, he turned around and looked at the beautiful big window in the front of the church made up of all different colors of glass, and then he turned back to again look at the altar and his eyes always went to the light of the burning candles.

After a time being alone in the church all by himself, Round Richard began to feel even smaller than he had when he had sat by the very tall nun.  And he thought it was time to leave, but before he did, he walked over to the candles on his left and stood watching the five candles burning – he had counted them – and he thought that the burning candles must mean something, but he did not know what that was.  And he looked at the light of the candles and he had heard somewhere that Jesus was light, maybe from Aunt Lucia at Christmas, but he did not know what that meant, but perhaps he would learn that in school here, perhaps the nuns and oh, maybe the priests, would tell him what that meant. 

After thinking all these things, Little Round Richard looked around the church once more and then walked out of the church through the door he came in and went to see if his father was already back at the truck.

The End of the Story

That was the story I was going to tell Richard.  But Richard had died before I arrived, and he didn’t hear this story, this last story of Little Round Richard that I wrote – Richard, now, I sadly then realized, the former Little Round Richard of Kagel Canyon.

The End

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