SPRING 2018: EASTER/APRIL FOOLS’ DAY EDITION

William’s memorial service

By Bill Briner

If nature abhors a vacuum, then the evening we celebrated the life of

William Blackwell indicated how many natural people there were as we gathered
together at St. Francis House. Filling our Catholic Worker House with a great
number of friends, we told stories and shared William’s dietary indiscretions
throughout Thursday night, and bid him farewell.
As he had found a place to live his own unique life, so we found a place to
share the sense of gratitude we all felt for the years he spent with us. Rest in
Peace William.
William’s memorial was held at St.
Francis House on the evening of
February 8, 2018, with hospitality by
Virginia Bzdek (burgers and tacos),
Larry Brown and Linda Reed Brown
(ice cream) and other generous folks
(cookies, cupcakes, and curry). Larry
Brown presided at table and Steve
Jacobs arranged the music.
Memorial photos by Lisa Stevens,
continued on the back page.
 Cycling into Spring
By Ruth O’Neill
Walking this morning, I saw daffodils blooming. Their
bright yellow cups will soon be joined by hyacinths popping up
like colorful mushrooms with their dozens of tiny star-shaped
blooms, and regal irises announcing the coming of Spring.
Suddenly, I realize this will be my first Easter in many years
without William Blackwell. The first year that I won’t be
constantly interrogated about when we were getting candy “for
the guests” for Easter (often preceded with an “I’ve got to get to
the store” to buy said candy).The first year of not assuring
William that there is no chicken in the stuffing and that we would
indeed have ham.
Dorothy Day was convinced that when we welcome a
stranger in need into our homes we welcome Christ. I will leave
it to others to describe to you how strange a Christ-bearer
William was in the beginning, because I didn’t know that
William. I knew the semi-domesticated version of William, the
one who would help bring in the donations that still arrive with
the regularity of an eccentric clock at St. Francis House. When I
met William he was silver haired and toothless, always in his
signature style of skinny lumberjack meets thrift store chic, but
strong and mobile. He regularly walked to the corner
convenience store for a Pepsi or cigarettes, rarely conning or
bribing someone else to do it for him. He still could mow small
level lawns, if they weren’t complicated by bushes or trees. And
when I moved in down the street a couple years
after meeting him, William came to my house at least once a
day. Often we sat on the back porch and listened to the radio or
his cassette tapes of Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and sundry 50s
rock and roll. He would regularly start to giggle, sometimes
rocking in silent laughter. I figured that the voices in his head
had just told him a great joke. But if I asked why he was
laughing he would just grin with that gleam in his brilliant blue
eyes and nod: if I didn’t know, he wouldn’t tell.
Once, he asked me to hold his social security card.
Occasionally he asked me to hold his “change purse” until we
could go somewhere to turn coins into folding money which he
then stashed in one of the 3 wallets he always carried.
Sometimes he asked me to make a phone call for him –he had
a calling card but the number of digits he had to dial was too
much for him. Sometimes he was looking for a way to get to the
2
store, asking me to put a chain on a new cross he acquired or
asking me out for breakfast (meaning would I drive him to
breakfast, then maybe on a money spending errand).
He sat on the porch at St. Francis wheeling and
dealing, a quarter for a cigarette or a Pepsi. He could sell half a
pack of Decades and make back most of the purchase price if
he chose. Sometimes he offered a cigarette for free, usually to
someone like me who didn’t smoke, or someone he was hoping
to lure into a favor. Years later, I realized that he always sold
the cheap cigarettes he bought, but rarely the Marlboroughs
that Bernadine, his favorite donor, gave him.
A few years after I moved to Rangeline, William
developed cataracts and these curtailed
his roaming. He quit walking to the corner
store, which may have hastened its
demise, as it closed and the building now
houses a payday loan company. He still
walked but never farther than my place.
After his cataract surgery he ventured out
more often but never went far, because
he had developed a fear of falling. He grew frailer, slowly in that
way where you don’t see it for a while and then it knocks you for
a loop. His kidneys failed and he added a catheter and leg bag
to his daily sartorial ensemble. But he still came to my door at
least once a week, unless the weather was bad, to see if I
wanted to go to breakfast or take him on an errand. Then about
a year ago he stopped walking down the block. He would call
me on the phone (usually conning one of the other Workers to
dial me on their cell) or catch me when I came by the house,
and we would make Saturday breakfast plans. We planned
breakfast almost every week. Sometimes we even went.
William and I last went to Waffle House around
Christmas. He drank orange juice, but he was not really himself.
One of our former guests was working as a host that morning.
He paid William special attention, but William didn’t beam
happily like he used to. A few days later, he fell.
Losing William-- knowing for days beforehand that we
were losing him, but not wanting to face it-- exhausted me
during those bleak January days after he slipped out of
consciousness at the hospital. Afterward, it took a while not to
look for him dozing in the chair by the front door, or at his
special place at the dining table, or joking with community
members in that special William-esque way. I don’t expect to
see him, but when I am in the house I feel his absence. It has
been a long winter. But spring is coming and with it, Easter, a
season of hope. Dorothy Day said, “There are wars and rumors
of war, poverty and plague, hunger and pain. Still, the sap is
rising, again there is the resurrection of spring, God’s continuing
promise to us that he is with us always, with his comfort and joy,
if we will only ask.” Grief fades but our memories remain, and
the work continues.
It’s time now to walk down the block to St. Francis
House, time to switch on the porch light and open the door, time
to smile in welcome as Christ walks in again.
 Frida Green Speaks "I bet you ain't had nuthin' to eat all day, had you?" he
By Maureen Doyle inquired. (And she still wouldn't have had nuthin' if things were
left up to ole Frida).
"Frida! You want a cigarette?" William's advocacy wasn't limited to any one species, either.
"Sure, William! You want a chicken sandwich?" While I lived at St. Francis House we had our Primary, All-
With this lighthearted exchange William Blackwell, a guest at Purpose Cat, Carlene, and my own personal Emergency
St. Francis House, and I jump started many a morning during Backup Cat, Sadie. One of William's medical theories was that
the 3 1/2 years I had the privilege of living there. He was aware vaccinations destroy feline brain cells. (He wasn't real crazy
of my aversion to All Things Tobacco, just as I was aware of about medicating humans either. But I digress).
William's belief (despite empirical evidence to the contrary), that "Carlene was one smart cat before she took them shots,"
for him poultry products constituted a deadly toxin. William often reminded me.
And the name Frida? William had the inscrutable custom of Toward the end of Carlene's life (she reigned as matriarch of
conferring new identities, avatars if you will, on a select cadre of St. Francis House for an astonishing 21 years) Leo and I had
guests, workers, and in some cases animals. When I arrived at occasion to take her to the vet. (Leo was a guest who was
St. Francis House in 1999 I was Bernice Cyress, until the day I always up for any task that required a surplus of activity). A
was informed, in an accusatory tone, "You ain't no Bernice scowling William was waiting for us on the porch as we returned
Cyress." After that I became Frida Green (I was kind of hoping with an equally disgruntled Carlene.
for Frida Kahlo, but what are you gonna do)? "Why don't you take your own damn cat to the vet?" he
William made his transition to the next life on January 23rd, demanded.
after living (and serving) at St. Francis House for 30 years. He It was the only time William ever got mad at me (at least, that
was one of the kindest people I have ever met, and he I know of).
advocated for, well, anyone he considered to be in need of Then there was the night I was on duty at the house when
advocacy. We Catholic Workers pray together, read the another regular, a gentleman who had suffered a head injury
Scriptures, and try to discern how to live out our Gospel calling. many years earlier, came in with a (very) superficial and (very)
William, on the other hand, Just. Did. It. tiny scratch on his scalp.
"Call 911!" William instructed me.
One Sunday For a change I didn't obey him.
afternoon, for "I really think he's OK William, and he doesn't want me to
example, I was on clean it or anything," I explained.
duty at the house William fretted about the situation all evening, at regular
when a young lady, intervals urging me to bring in the paramedics.
one of our regulars, "He was in a bad accident and he hurt his head," I was
came in and reminded several times.
immediately fell At 10:25, just before the house closed for the night, I noticed
asleep on the couch. that William was talking on the phone. My curiosity was
She's a sex worker definitely piqued because he seldom made phone calls. The
and undoubtedly mystery was solved when William handed me the receiver and I
hadn't slept all night. found myself explaining to an emergency room nurse that the
I took notice of her situation was under control and that no one was in danger of
and went about what bleeding to death.
I was doing. William, William experienced auditory hallucinations, and judging by
however, directed me the fact that he often burst into inexplicable laughter they must
to make her some have been very amusing hallucinations indeed. When asked on
coffee and cook her one occasion if he ever heard voices, though, he answered,
some breakfast. I "No, those are just the guys in my pocket."
obeyed him of course I recently repeated this anecdote to my sister, and her wise
(pretty much response was, "The guys in William's pocket are real to him so
everyone did) and they could actually be his Guardian Angels. Just because we
prepared the coffee, bacon and eggs, toast, and grits. (William's can't see them doesn't mean they DON'T exist."
role in the process was basically that of a supervisory capacity). And so, beloved William, through tears and sorrow I
He then served the meal like a maitre d' in a four star reluctantly bid you farewell (with apologies to a different
restaurant. William): "Yours was a noble heart. Good night, sweet Prince,
and may the guys in your pocket sing thee to thy rest."

3
 FOOLS & SINNERS
By Steve Jacobs
We've kicked the idea around for several years of having an
April Fools edition of Harvest of Justice, our newsletter. I thought it
might be amusing if we took the foundational premise of all
Catholic Worker communities which is to create "a place where it is
easier to do/be good" and contrasted that with the "prosperity
gospel" ethic of reaping material rewards for being a Christian. A
mock version of our newsletter would change to "Just Harvesting".
The hope would be that the sudden reversal and consequent
promotion of greed and avarice would provide an ironic moment of
cognitive dissonance. . . a moment to compare the two ethics so
that we might discard the "prosperity gospel" into the dustbin of
history. But whatever merit this idea entails must be weighed
against society's ability to detect and appreciate irony; and there
are more than a few reasons to think that the age of irony is dead.
If you don't believe it, I give you Donald Trump as exhibit A. Some
readers are too young to remember the late 60's, when the great
musical satirist, Tom Lehrer stopped performing his biting and
hilarious songs like "So Long Mom (A Song for World War Three)"
and "The Vatican Rag" and noted that people didn't get irony
anymore and he pointed to Henry Kissinger being awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize along with his North Vietnamese counterpart. A
later generation still didn't get it when Obama was awarded the
peace prize in the first months of his presidency and he hadn't
done anything to get it except sign an executive order closing the
prison at Guantanamo (which ironically is still open). But
foolishness goes by many names. It seems to be built into all
human made systems; an "idiocracy" if you will. Its seed comes
from the hubris in human nature.
It's been said that "God makes saints of fools and sinners
because He has nothing else to work with". When I think of all the
fools & sinners I've encountered in my 63 years (including that guy
I glimpse in the mirror) it makes me wonder whether the Creator
purposely designed this universe with an idiot-proof default
mechanism to protect it from any creatures that might evolve the
capacity to understand how it works and the hubris to think we can
manipulate it to our own purposes rather than the purpose the
Creator intended. Some say it takes a whole lifetime to figure out
how things work but by then, you're too old to do anything about it.
Another protective mechanism seems to be human mortality. Stop
and think a moment how bad we humans could muck things up if
we were immortal. As Einstein once observed, "Two things are
infinite; the universe and human stupidity and I'm not so sure about
the universe".
There is a fascinating duality to this existence at work, that an
observant person can use it to negotiate their way through life by
observing and doing as others have done. We look to those
paragons of virtue, those noble saints and prophets as examples to
emulate but I wonder too how much debt is owed to the idiots and
fools who unwittingly provide a template of what we shouldn't do.
And our ability to tolerate fools depends on whether they are
confident idiots like Donald Trump or merely someone with a
glorious absence of sophistication who owe their foolishness to
inexperience or poor brain chemistry.
4
As a young Catholic Worker I was fascinated by the number of
homeless folks who sought food and shelter with us. Some were
poor due to loss of work but many were poor because they had
schizophrenia or developmental impairments and were left to fend
for themselves. Then there were the self medicators treating
themselves with alcohol and drugs. As an ex-navy psychiatric
hospital corpsman, it seemed that Catholic Worker houses I visited
in the 70's had the feel of some of the better run insane asylums
(without the code blue restraint teams for violent patients). These
CW houses were/are asylums in the best sense of the word;
places of refuge. But unlike the navy hospitals I'd worked in,
attendance was voluntary. We used to joke that in order to be a
Catholic Worker, you had to have a high tolerance for weirdness. It
was funny because it was true. And now that my youth is gone like
a hair-do in a rainstorm, I realize that all you need for an asylum is
a space and the right kind of people. Whether it's a good asylum or
a bad one is up to you.
So we created the St. Francis House for the mentally frazzled.
In those early days the CW's were more frequently frazzled than
our guests. So many of our guests had lived wild and free for so
long, that they chaffed at the restrictions we placed on them. And
putting common sense rules in place seemed to generate
resentment from the type of guests who always seemed to know
best how everyone else should act despite not taking their own
advice. It was often like loading frogs in a wheel barrow. We made
a list of some of the commandments we imagined that Moses must
have smashed on the tablets when he returned from his meeting
with God and saw the chosen people worshiping a golden idol.
Primarily among those lost commandments was, "Pisseth off not,
thy neighbor". I suffered from the sin of pride, because that was
one of the rules I thought up. Like the Vatican II theologians, we
thought it was a good move to put our rules in the vernacular of the
times. We banned alcohol and drugs from the house and after 6
months of choking on second hand smoke we banned smoking in
the house. For those feral humans used to living outside, we were
more of a burden on them than they were on us. Of course, having
rules is one thing and enforcing them another. In the final analysis,
when rational discussion failed to convince the contestants who
broke our minimal rules which we felt were for the good of all, we
could always point to the door and say, "This is our home and if
you want to go start your own place and run it your way, then go
and do it". To a lot of the alcoholics and addicts these
pronouncements went over like a giraffe on roller skates but to
make a place where it is easier to be good, it was necessary to put
limits on foolishness.
So many of our guests emerged from the mists of time, stayed
a few days and went right back into it. Others stayed long enough
for us to learn their names and some of their stories. When William
Blackwell arrived in the spring of 1984, he was as broke as the 10
commandments. There was no way for us to know that he would
become our longest homeless resident. He had only the clothes on
his back and weighed 120 lbs soaking wet. He seemed like he'd
stepped off the curb and was having a hell of an adventure trying
to complete the crossing. He had black rotten teeth and asked for
coffee and smokes. He'd laugh and talk to himself. Sometimes he
seemed to be laughing at something someone said or did but often
for no apparent reason. He didn't need a visible person to have a
conversation either. His comments often contained threats to
invisible antagonists and he'd wave a fist while offering a knuckle
sandwich to his invisible foe. Sometimes his laughter was loud.
This had a disconcerting effect on some of the other guests.
There's an old saying; "Laugh and the whole world laughs with you.
But laugh uproariously for no apparent reason and people will
cross the street to avoid you". Most folks crossed that metaphorical
street to avoid him in those early days.
That spring Frannie Andsager decided to plant a garden in the
house we rented. William had been asking for work and asked to
help turn over the lawn. She started him and when she returned a
couple hours later he'd spaded up way more than she wanted.
He'd go over to a local ministry that hired homeless folks for day
labor jobs and use whatever $ he earned for cigarettes and Pepsi.
He'd come and go from St. Francis House often for weeks or
months at a time but always returned. Then he made a foolish
mistake that changed his life forever.
He went into a social services office (probably for a food stamp
card) and lit up a cigarette and started making suggestive
comments about the female clerks. His mental health affidavit said
he made lewd comments to the female staff and when confronted
he told them he could blow up the office with a bomb. He also
mentioned the entire state of Missouri and several other places he
could bomb. That got him committed for a 96 hour psychiatric
evaluation. They put him on haldol and we noticed a remarkable
improvement upon his release. He was much less agitated and still
had auditory hallucinations but not as often and he could focus
better on conversations. We learned about his past psych history
and how he'd left South Carolina as a young teen. His father died
when he was 4 and he left home without high school and roamed
the country. He was institutionalized in a psych hospital in San
Diego and released when he became an adult. He stayed at
missions and shelters around the country. While staying at a
mission in Detroit he was described as disorganized and someone
there succeeded in signing him up for social security disability.
They tried to confine him to the grounds of the mission because
every time he went out he'd come back beaten up. When they
asked him why someone beat him up he told them he just had the
kind of face that made people want to beat him up. He spent all the
money they allowed him on cigarettes and soda pop and they once
found him on the lying on the curb on his back outside the mission
smoking and letting the snow fall on his bare stomach. He resumed
his travels soon after that and eventually made it to our place.
His new found ability to focus made him alot of fun to talk with
and he told us that he'd smuggled the atomic bomb over to Russia
in his overcoat. When asked how he did that he said he took the
train.
Must have been that secret transatlantic line you don't hear so
much about. He also recounted how he was decapitated and when
I asked why he wasn't dead, he replied that a Dr. reattached his
head and that this happened half a dozen times. He had alot of
respect for John the Baptist because he knew what it was like to
have your head cut off. He also regaled us with the story of how he
saw Andy Griffith kill 50 Georgia State Troopers in a back alley in
Atlanta one night. One evening when Matlock was on (Andy
5
Griffith's later TV series) he suddenly stopped and stared at the TV
and said, "I don't see why anyone would give that man a TV show."
On his visits to the psych clinics for haldol injections he'd ask if
they were going to keep him overnight. He'd take off his watch and
cross necklace and along with his wallet, stash them in the glove
compartment, because when he was an involuntary patient
valuables were locked up. He'd rather swallow a bag of hair than
go to a doctor’s appointment but on the way out he'd grin like a
possum eating bumble bees.
His kind of foolishness manifested in hording warm clothes.
He had about 50 pairs of gloves, wool caps and would raid the
donations for coats even though he already had about 20 in his
closet or on his bed. He also would ask new community members
if they would keep his coat in their closet. At one time there were 5
CW's who had some of his coats in their closet. I used to raid his
collection and give them away to
other homeless folks and scold
him for having 25 caps but only
one head when the guests had
25 heads and no winter caps. He
collected them like the pentagon
collects nuclear warheads. It's a
fool that looks for logic in the
human heart. He also collected
wrist watches and radios. After a
bedbug infestation I threw away
about 40 broken radios and 20
broken watches before moving him down to a bed bug free zone.
In 1992 I was appointed his legal guardian and his payee for
his SSI so I paid his medical bills and gave him spending money.
He'd turn around and use that money to manipulate the other
guests who had less money than him. I still have to smile when I
remember William paying Doug Horton to go get sacks of ice for
him down the street. Doug had a superiority complex and would
make fun of less functional guests but never seemed to get the
irony of a guy with a college education doing the bidding of a guy
with a 5th grade education. Doug would keep most of the change
from the $ William would give him and buy lottery tickets with it. But
William was able to charm most of us into doing his bidding.
He led a hard life on the street and had to rely on the kindness
of strangers but when he arrived at St. Francis House it must have
been a bit like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool
of mermaids. He found an intentional community of like-minded
souls who were willing to disregard the conventional wisdom of the
times to look out only for yourself and let the government take care
of the rest of the unfortunate people. And even though he travelled
the same road of heavy consequences that many of our other
guests travelled, he was able to leave finger and footprints all over
our house and memories in our hearts . . . let alone a giant portrait
of his head, looming on the wall mural across the street from St.
Francis House.
He helped to teach us that caring for the people
pushed to the margins of society should be central to the ethic
and practice of Christianity. It's an old idea that in today's world
seems so foolish that it just might work.
 Remembering William
Birthdays-- By Rachael Krall
In January, we lost William Blackwell, our longest term guest at
St. Francis House. He touched the lives of many people, as
evident by the many people who joined us for his memorial
service. He was always a welcoming presence to people who
visited or lived at St. Francis House. Despite the challenges of
his history of having spent many years in mental health
institutions, where he at times suffered abuse and neglect, over
the years he developed trust and relationships with those of us
who were blessed to be part of his life. He showed empathy and
compassion for both the guests at the house and visitors.
William always had a special relationship with our son
Andrew. Over the years he would give Andrew gifts of radios,
watches, and other assorted gifts. We celebrated William's and
Andrew's birthdays together since their birthdays were both in
July.
Andrew’s birthday was always special to William, but
any excuse for ice cream and cake was a reason for ice cream
and cake. William sometimes approached me when I was on
the house to ask whether it was somebody’s birthday. If it was,
and if Kim or Walle or Lisa hadn’t brought in treats to celebrate,
he would ask one of the workers or a guest with a car to take
him to the store to get some cake and ice cream.
The picture below is of the last birthday that William and Andrew
celebrated together. William will always have a special place in
our hearts.
Through the years—By Bob Heinz
It was about the middle 80’s and St. Francis House
was new. While visiting I saw this gentleman sitting all alone on
the north side of the big table in the dining room before a plate
of “bun-less” hot dogs. He looked in his forties with dark, crew
cut hair. As he ate his eyes darted around the room like an
animal fearing his food would be stolen away. As he gobbled
his food, he kept saying the “F” word over and over. This was
my first meeting of William, and I’m sure it was before meds
were found to calm his mental demons and fears.
Later I got to know
the William who was the host
of the house: “Can I get you
a cup of coffee?” He knew I
worked at the University and
would often ask me “if they
had any work,” as he always
seemed to be looking for
work. In more recent years
on Tuesday nights when I
had the house, he knew he
had a way of getting me to fix
him something for supper
that wasn’t on the
menu…like a hot dog or biscuits and gravy.
The Workers had warned me about “William
manipulations,” but he just had this way of touching my heart.
His last 21 days in the hospital were rough…a spirit that wanted
and deserved peace, but a body that was a fighter and won’t
give up. Ole William taught me things until the very end—things
about life and death and God.
 Go Ahead On
By Britt Hultgren
As soon as I met William, I knew that I would watch
him die. Because, as he would say, he looked like hell.
Scrunched up in a chair, skin hanging off him like it had given
up, pockets full of lighters, chains tangled around his neck, piled
high in dirty hooded sweatshirts, and smoke drifting off him—he
looked like a garage sale had started on fire and and been put
out with a pot of
stale coffee.
My first
thought was, Okay,
that’s your average
run of the mill 84-
year old guy with a
psych illness who
smokes too much.
Then Steve told me
he was in his sixties
and I believe my
next words were,
“You’re shitting
me.” My shock
progressively
transformed to awe
as I noticed how he
had lived and how he stayed alive: a lifetime of hard years
chased by day-to-day subsistence on pepsi, coffee, cold water
(twice emptied in the sink first), hot dogs, cheeseburgers,
bacon, sugar, more sugar, white bread full of sugar, spam and
mayo sandwiches, hot dogs, cigarettes, VieEEEna sausages at
times, grit, determination, lies, and manipulation of Doug the
Weasel. He was resilient and tenacious. But still, for several
years, when I would tuck him in just about every night,
sometimes with Robby, sometimes on my own, I always
prepared myself for William to never wake up.
I’d tuck him in with a teddy bear and tell him I loved
him. He’d say “Nooooooah, Boy! You know better than that.”
Sometimes I’d kiss him on his greasy lil head. “Geet, Nature
Boy.” I believe he acted like he liked that bear, but really hated
it. As soon as we’d tuck it in the covers, he’d pull it out and toss
it to the side. That someone brought it to the hospital to lead
him to the Ferryman makes me happy. He certainly would have
appreciated it, even as he’d’ve complained.
And I loved it. He became one of my best friends. For
a couple years there I didn’t have a job really, so I would spend
hours at a time daily hanging out with Will. Like the bear, I think
he hated it and loved it at the same time. When I got my dog he
acted like he loved him more than me (I think he did). We
became a little codependent. I would play tough and coddle him
when nobody was around.
So, when he finally did get very sick, I was surprised
by how much it hurt to see that he was really going to die this
7
time. I wasn’t so much surprised that he was dying, but that
because I had been preparing for him to die for so long, I
figured I would be more
ready for it than I was. I sat
with him like we used to do,
made jokes, talked about the
old times. He told me to
leave. I told him I loved him.
He told me “Nature Boy, go
ahead on” But even though I
had been looking at the end
for a while, when I saw it
then, it was fresher and
sadder than I thought it
would or could be. I cried a
number of times while he was still conscious. He looked at me
distastefully, to put it nicely. When he went into a coma, I’d sit
with him for a couple hours and talk, and say goodbye—each
time I didn’t want to say it again, I didn’t think I’d have to—but I
felt a bit desperate that it would really be the last time. I was
sitting with him an hour and a half before he died. It was quiet,
the sun was setting. I swabbed his throat with pepsi and called
some people to let them say goodbye.
It’s easy to say these things after the fact, but I must
have known something, because when I said goodbye this time,
I wept like I hadn’t before. I told him he was one of my best
friends, and some the happiest years of my life up to that point
had been spent with him. I told him I loved him. I tucked in that
damn bear he hated, one last time, and I said my final
goodbye— “I hope you’re going to be in a better way now.
Maybe I’ll see you later. Go ahead on.”
I love you, Will. You were one of my best friends, and
you shaped me in so many ways (not all of them good). I’ll miss
you and I’ll always remember you.
“I hope you’re in a better way now. Maybe I’ll see you
later. Go ahead on.”
 Saying goodbye to our dear friend
were old friends and new friends.
Somehow William managed to touch
A lot of hearts.

St. Francis House Catholic Worker

1001 Rangeline St.
Columbia, MO 65201