My last post was about the loss of my sister’s partner, Harmony. Now I’d like to tell you about his close friend, a man I only met once, at Harmony’s gathering. I’m not going to use his name here for obvious privacy reasons. But I’d love to tell you about him.

I’m not sure of his age but he’s slowing down, his memory is fading, and he is rarely able to get out of bed or leave his home. But friends made sure he was able to be at the gathering.

There were a lot of people there I didn’t know and he gave me a safe oasis to be in the crowd. I sat with him in the sunshine and listened to his stories and he gave me a reason to be there. Since he couldn’t get around much, I could offer him food, or get him something to drink, or just be company for him. Although that was an excuse because he didn’t need my company. Every single person there gravitated to him.

In his younger days, he was a naturopath, an acupuncturist, an herbalist, and one of the founding group, along with Harmony, of the famous Barter Faire in the Pacific Northwest. He helped start a well-known Antakarana Circle.

He built his own house, a round home, on six hundred acres, where he and Harmony and their friends lived. When it was lost to fire, he built another round house and told me he built it out of pallets and cardboard for less than a thousand dollars. Thinking about cardboard, I asked him if he worried about mice. He replied ‘I have a cat’. A round house, because spirit gets stuck in angles. It makes me think of all the round houses in so many cultures down through time.

He told me he’d had to put shoes on to come to the gathering, and how he rarely wore them. He said we should go barefoot on the land, soaking up the earth’s energies and neurons. It wasn’t long before his shoes were off and his feet were in the sun-warmed grass. This is something I’ve heard before and I’m going to follow his advice.

Once it stops raining.

So many people were happy to see him, to reminisce, tell stories, and re-introduce themselves to him, resurrecting a long, shared past. One person from the old days, who shall also remain nameless for obvious reasons, told him it wasn’t surprising he didn’t remember many of them because back then they hadn’t had clothes on.

I absolutely loved being in his company. Not only because it gave me something to focus on and a way to feel useful and needed, but because he is an amazing person. You know how it is when someone crosses paths with you for a brief moment in time and you know you’ll probably never see them again? And yet you have this deep recognition that this is a person who should have always been in your life? He and Harmony both should always have been in my life.

There are so many stories there, in that man, and I will never know them. But I am so grateful for the tiny window he opened for me.

And guess what? At the end of the day I was told by someone how much he had enjoyed me sitting with him…and that he knew I needed tasks to do and a place to be.