 |
2016, on the rooftop of Francis' new apartment building
|
In late November of last year, a woman named Remy called me from the LA County Coroners Office. It was a random weekday afternoon and as soon as she said her name and where she was calling from, my heart sunk.
Then it broke.
I knew what she was going to say before she said it.
I had suspected it for a couple of weeks.
The Halloween card and letter I sent him had been returned to me. I’d double checked the address. I pictured the lobby of the apartment building where I knew the bright orange envelope should have been slipped into it’s proper slot.
But when I got the envelope back, I knew. I didn’t admit it, even to myself, but I knew.
Francis was gone.
Remy had a kind voice and took her time telling me what little information she had to share. He’d been found in his apartment, deceased. They’d gone through his things to find next of kin to contact and made some calls. I was on the list. It had taken longer to track me down because the envelopes they’d found only contained my name and address.
Francis didn’t have a phone. I’d given him my digits a long time ago but they weren’t for his use. They were to give to a case worker, and eventually a friend, in case they needed to get ahold of me for him. He didn’t want a phone he said. He liked writing. He was a writer.
His cursive was elaborate, his words filled pages of stationary, or just the small left-hand side of a post card. He’d mark up books and magazines to pass to me. This began when we first met. But I don’t know when that was. Was it the first day I visited Hollywood United Methodist Church? The first time I volunteered on a Tuesday passing out lunches and supplies to those in need? I cannot recall, and I’ve tried. Especially over this past year.
But it doesn’t matter. Francis was just always there. Like a member of the family, because he was. Family.
Over the past decade or more, I’d come to know Francis, and he’d come to know me, Angela, my parents, and so many of my friends. We’d see him on Tuesdays and Sundays and send letters in between or when we’d travel. I sent him a postcard from London, telling him we were in his beloved homeland. He sent a postcard from up the coast near Santa Barbara where he often went with friends around Christmas. The postcard in December of 2020 told me how much they loved the molasses cookies we baked and packaged carefully and snuck out to our secret post office at night to mail in a terrible surge of the pandemic. We hadn’t seen Francis in person since March and those letters and postcards were our tether. The cookies were an extension of that tether. They were the cookies his mother used to make. I loved that he loved them.
Francis would pluck flowers, even roses, from front yards or who knows where, and present them to Angela and I on spring mornings in the breezeway at church. He didn’t often go into the sanctuary for the worship service, preferring to sit in the warm air and listen from afar. He did not seem to like to be confined, I figured out after a while. He’d lived on the street a long time. But eventually, he got an apartment. And it was as if he’d won the lottery. Everyone who knew him had won the lottery. We celebrated and shed happy tears. And we had a housewarming!
I’ll never forget sitting in that big half moon booth at Denny’s. Eating and laughing and celebrating. Then we made our way a few blocks down and found the apartment building. He showed us all around the studio as if it were the grandest palace he’d ever seen. And it was. Because it was his. It was perfect. I noted the dishrags Angela and I had knitted him being used as doilies on an end table, the scented soaps we’d gifted him displayed in the kitchen. Francis had an apartment. For the last six years of his life. That fact makes me cry again today.
Francis didn’t have an apartment when we first met. He’d come over to the United States from England at some point, though dates were fuzzy with him. He had a fiancee who we believe passed away and that was his transatlantic catalyst. He spoke of her, and his family, with fondness. He went to boarding school. His father was a teacher. He loved that Angela and I were teachers. He asked Angela about her kids every time he saw her.
So many nights I sat in my living room, darning clothes, patching sweaters, teaching myself how to repair a jacket, all for Francis. He found out early on I could sew, and constantly had projects for me. He was always dressed so well and took such great care in the items he collected and I was happy to help him stitch a few things up. As I stitched, I always thought of him, him and his smile. That smile that never failed to appear on a Tuesday just before closing time or when I’d pull up to his home to pick him up for an appointment.
He never failed to ask about my parents, he loved the winter hat mom knitted for him and wore it long into the warmer months. He wrapped the scarves she made him around and around his neck and grinned. He asked about other mutual friends and always had a clipping or a magazine for someone. He loved to read and watch old movies and he was a writer. Screenwriting brought him to Los Angeles. Though he never let on exactly what he was writing.
In our letters in 2020 and early 2021 we discussed heading back to Denny’s once we got the all clear. He promised he’d get vaccinated, we did too. He said he had lots to keep him busy inside, always something to clean or read. He missed the library though.
We sent him a book or two and we smiled whenever we’d get a note from him. Angela often read them aloud at the dinner table as she was the Francis handwriting whisperer (that teacher thing!). We all knew we’d be back to normal soon.
But then that orange envelope came back.
I have put off writing about Francis for almost a year. But today, on the one year anniversary of his passing, I forced myself to sit down and do it.
I figure out my feelings, I figure out life, through my words, through my fingers on the keyboard. And I’d given myself too long to let all of that roll around in my brain. Some days I can pretend he’s not gone because we don’t visit on Tuesdays or Sundays anymore. I can just tell myself I’m waiting for the next letter. I’ll send more molasses cookies soon.
But I know, because grief tells me, that that isn’t true. My heart is broken because he is gone. My grief is real. I cannot ignore that.
The last three years have taken so much from us but one of the worst things is the ability for so many, myself included, to be in physical community with others. I miss being with my friends in person. I miss making new friends in person. I know times will change and life will resume for me eventually, as it already has for so many. But for now, for then, for what has happened, it is just this.
Francis is gone. I will continue to mourn him. And I will never forget him. His smile, his laughter, his accent, his hugs, his letters, and most of all, his heart.
Thank you for loving me and my family, Francis. Thank you for being a part of my family.
I miss you.
I will always miss you.
