Eulogy

A buddy of mine died today. He was the guy I felt closest to at Our Daily Bread--we had a good rapport. He was our porter, which meant mostly he sat by our receptionist's desk and did little odd jobs for her. He helped her stuff envelopes, or would bring the mail to those of us in the office, shuffling across the floor. When I'd come in at the start of the day I'd smile and say hi to him. And he'd turn around like he was trying to figure out who I was talking to. And if I was walking through the place I'd hear him sing out "Ann--gela!" But of course if I looked over at him he'd be looking behind him again. (He played this game with his nephews too. Several times a day I'd hear him give that same kind of teasing call to one of them. It was one of the ways I knew all was well with the world.)
I remember probably my first week of working there, or close to it, I sat next to him at the front door in an effort to get acclimated to the soup kitchen environment. He greeted everyone who came in, usually with a nickname. "What's up, Grumpy?" "How's your kid doing?"
"How many of the people here do you know?" I asked him.
"I don't know any of 'em," he said seriously. Then he went back to greeting everybody.
Two things he was known for in particular. One was his Li'l Rascals face. He didn't have any teeth, so he had no problem getting his lower lip all the way up to his nose, pouting it out as he did it so his lower face was all frowny lip. Then he'd turn his baseball cap to the side, squeeze his eyes shut and slump down so his stomach stuck out. He adopted this pose if anyone tried to take his picture, and often he did it just because.
The other thing he did was set off the loon call in the office. Our volunteer coordinator had bought a stuffed animal loon who would give its weird call--ooOOOooo--if you pressed down on its back. This my buddy enjoyed doing. He never grew tired of hearing it. We got treated to a lot of loon calls when he was around. Not too long ago he started doing something new--slowly tipping his head back and opening his mouth wide as it'd go when he set off the loon call, so it seemed like the noise was coming out of his own throat. Then it became an in-joke greeting between us--I would mime his loon call move, he would mime it back to me. This was especially great in the middle of a crazy day (it's always a crazy day in a soup kitchen). My desk is so positioned that I could look out the office door and see him sitting by the front door, clear across the lower dining room. On a tough day I'd catch his eye, tip my head back, open my mouth as wide as it would go--ooOOOooo. He'd do it back. We'd giggle and I would get back to work.
Sometimes I'd look up from my computer and see him standing expressionless in the doorway of his office--no telling how long he'd been standing there. I'd roll my eyes and he'd crack up. Or he'd be behind the door and would slooooowly come peeking out, only to duck right back. (This was another sign he spent a lot of time entertaining his nephews.) I would mimic him then too, playing hide and seek behind my computer, until we'd both crack up. "If I can make you laugh, I know I've done something right," he'd say. He seemed really proud of himself when he said it, too, and I knew this laugh during a tough day was his gift to me, and he was glad to be able to give it.
He had a lot of tough days--he was sick a long time--and there wasn't much I could do to lighten them for him. "I'm not feeling too good, Angie" was something he said often. And sometimes when he'd be walking out of the office after bringing us the mail (holding it out and then snatching it out of reach a few times before relinquishing it), he'd stop and close his eyes and wobble a little before continuing on.
A couple of weeks ago he gave me a little white teddy bear that's sitting now on my desk. "What are you gonna name it?" he asked me later that day.
"I don't know. I don't think I ever really had a teddy bear as a kid. My favorite stuffed animal back then was a rabbit named Bunny Baby."
"Then name it Bunny."
So I have Bunny to remember him by.
He gave our volunteer coordinator a musical snowglobe that he won at one of our weekly bingos. It "snows" iridescent sparkles on a pair of giraffes, and it plays "Everything is Beatiful." When he came in for a visit to the office, often or she would wind it up, and he would dance. So she has that, and the song will make all of us think of him when we hear it.
Everything is beautiful in its own way.