I’ve wanted to write this tribute for some time but never felt like I was ready. If I’m honest, I’ve been feeling a low grade fog of grief since this summer. PJ was the unexpected friend, who like so many of God’s wondrous yet strange gifts to us, has the capacity to change us.
About 4 years ago I was attending a church event in our fellowship hall. A Humpty-Dumpty looking man with mid-longish, sandy brown, hair in his early fifties had found a chair and was sitting in the corner of the room. He had a cart with his belongings. He was in need without any of the airs of begging or neediness but without any feigned pride. He was present in a matter fact way doing his best to be unobtrusive while seeking acknowledgment.
I passed him several times as I made my way around the hall visiting with people. Each time I walked by, I felt both uncomfortable, and a pull on my heart strings. I remember my gait being full of joy and bounce that day. I love our community and I was especially happy to have time with a few people I do not see often enough. After a few longer stolen glances at each other I offered to bring this stranger some food and drink since it was clear by his weight that moving around was not something he did easily. He was appreciative and without begging made his need known for some money to help with transportation that he required.
I have a soft, easily moved heart that I wear on my sleeves. I also was in a church setting where I was naturally inclined to want to serve and help. I didn’t have any money in my wallet but, I told him I’d help. I asked someone to walk with me to the bank but they were nursing injuries and declined. I set out to the bank as quickly as I could. I came back and gave PJ the money. I felt something open up in his heart. His practical, unperturbed demeanor softened, and his gratitude had a kind of sticky effect on me. I awkwardly finished our conversation, wished him blessings, and then left.
This was to be the start of a long and graced connection with PJ. He began showing up everywhere. His favorite spot was an old oak tree with a bench that was around it’s perimeter on our church campus. PJ and I began talking on a regular basis and getting to know one another. I was never sure how much of what PJ shared was real and how much was fabricated. It was a thin edge.
Overtime I came to realize that almost all of it was true. There were certain things he indulged in fabricating but, these I think, were more like narratives of hope to give him edge, attitude, conviction, pride, and negotiating room with others in claiming a place of respect and decency.
If there was one thing PJ clamored for more than anything else, it was respect. He didn’t want people to see him as a homeless man always with his hand out looking for things. He wanted people to see him for who he was. PJ had a huge heart. He cared about people. He could have easily been a mayor. He took interest in people’s well-being and worried about them with a self-forgetting capacity that was unnatural given his exigencies.
I can’t say I can piece together his narrative in a cogent way; I have bits and pieces of it. Like his motorcycle accident that took him out of the workforce and sent him to the west coast. He worked in the food industry as a manager of small chain restaurants. He grew up in New Jersey and Maryland. He had a sister (Angela) that died from a drug overdose. He had a strained and disappointing relationship with his mother, a brother who suffered from muscular dystrophy and was intellectual disabled, and another sister who as far as I know is still alive. Earlier in his life PJ overcame an alcohol addiction. Over all the years I knew him, and in the last 2 years I spent a lot of time with him, I never once saw him either drunk or drinking alcohol.
PJ was a nudge and knew how to advocate for himself. We started this running gag about New York and New Jersey. He had Jersey attitude – he could be blunt, direct, pushy and to the point. I had to learn how and when to set boundaries. He was beyond grateful for anything anyone ever did for him.
PJ built an elaborate network of people who showered him with daily love and blessings that were key to his survival. PJ’s heart was huge, warm, and welcoming. People were naturally attracted to him. You wanted to help PJ. Priest and parishioners alike were very generous and eager to help PJ in lots of different ways. His gratitude was deep. While not one to be maudlin, he was humble and clear in seeing the Hand of God moving in His life. He took delight and awe in it.
PJ and I prayed every day together. It was down to earth, always with a little humor thrown in but full of genuine faith, and loads of hope. The encouragement was two way. PJ was filled with street smarts and gentle loving wisdom. God was pleased to use him on multiple occasions to be an agency of wisdom and encouragement to me. I really saw him as a brother. We laughed constantly, and had great conversations full of sass and probing reflections. He had a dry sense of humor with an ever-ready flare of dead-pan contrarian sarcasm.
PJ loved cars. My car became a portable temple for many of our conversations. PJ called my car Marty. Let’s just say Marty took on quite the personality. Where I was careless and uncaring towards Marty, PJ always had Marty’s back. PJ was forever giving me grief for never giving Marty a bath. After daily mass I used to carefully get all of PJ’s stuff in my car and drive him to various places. This could be a process and was challenging on many days given the other demands in my life. One of our usual destinations was Monterey Peninsula College where he was taking classes.
PJ’s prized possession was his massive collection of boxcars. He called them his kiddos. He had probably close to 500 cars at one point in various carrying cases. He always had to have as many of his kids around him as he could manage. Since he lived most nights on the street I would house the cars he could not keep with him in Marty’s trunk.
He loved to show me the cars and talk about them. I inherited all of PJ’s cars (along with a lot of other junk that is still in my car from transporting him and his stuff for so long). The picture for this post are his cars. I wanted to find the best home possible for them. I hemmed and hawed. There was also a part of me that wanted to keep them as a long as possible to hold onto his memory. I felt him nudge me to donate the cars to Salvation Army. PJ looked for any opportunity to give a gift of one of his cars to kids who he bumped into on the streets. Truth be told I did keep two Batman mobiles that he gave me, they are in Marty and will stay there!
PJ died on July 18th, 2021. The last 6 months were brutal. It was clear his physical ability to withstand life on and off the streets was taking its final toll. I used to pick up his bedding in the morning after mass and give him whatever he needed or wanted from my trunk. I’d come back in the evenings and bring him dinner most nights and drop off his bedding. I think the most poignant moment was when after a hospitalization he prematurely demanded to be released. The doctors in their well-meaning, professional narrative had somehow put a major chink in his armor. They robbed PJ of the one thing that he fiercely held onto: HOPE. He was so rattled.
PJ’s health got to the point that he was unable to sit for long periods. He began standing for chunks of the day holding and leaning onto the back of a park bench. The fight for life was slipping. Irony of ironies, he began sleeping every night tucked in a small corner by the back edge of San Carlos cemetery in Monterey, California. I don’t want to try to describe his devastating descent into the grips of death. Life is harsh.
I was a mix of many emotions. That’s the weird hand of death isn’t it? I was happy for him, even jealous. I told him he was not allowed to get to heaven before me. We’re the same age and even listened to all of the same dopey 80’s music. I was angry that a heart as good as his was lost. I was mad that he never got another chance to live a normal life. I was grateful for a friend who loved me and for being able to make a difference in each other’s’ lives. I’m finally crying as I write this – tears that I have longed to shed but somehow left bottled inside of me.
There was an outpouring of prayer and love from our San Carlos Cathedral community. Fr. Patrick immediately offered a mass. Parishioners organized a rosary for him with multiple people who out of the blue but, who knew him, asking me for the details of the rosary, and who took time out in the middle of their week and their day to pray the rosary for him. And there were also people who bought mass intentions for him. God always finds a way to put His gentle touches of Healing Love and Grace on people and situations. God is so Good and Great! Darkness and despair can never win.
PJ you better be ready to give me the royal tour of heaven. I can’t wait to see you again buddy. Please keep pouring out prayers upon me and all of the people who you touched and who cared for you.
Love,
Terrence
Do you have a picture and memory of someone you lost this year that you’d like to share?