Crooked back from decades of washing dishes in the local diner,
Mostly blind from age,
Massive wen at the back of his neck.
Kindness that his body could barely contain,
A laugh that was both self-conscious and gregarious,
A spirit that is seldom seen among us.
He lived in a wee house on the east side of town,
walking across town each week with a cart,
full of his laundry or the week’s groceries.
Before I was born,
he would walk the winter blocks to start the fire that warmed his church,
arriving hours before everyone else,
thinking of their comfort before his own.
Walking down the isle towards the pulpit,
he always sat on the third pew from the front,
on the right.
Next to his recliner at home,
were certificates from study-from-home bible college,
each he received in the 1960s,
each carefully framed and placed above his record player,
where he listened each day to scripture on 78s.
To most people he was nobody special,
to me he was a saint,
a sage,
a shining example.
