Now that I’ve discussed my difficulties with friendships, I’ll spend some time talking about my successes.
During my five-year stint of social disasters, I made two very good friends. Their presence in my life is proof of the maxim that as far as friends are concerned, quality is what counts, not quantity. Not surprisingly, both friendships developed in the contexts in which I’m most comfortable: being a mother, and working on a creative project.
One of these friends is a woman named Sue. When we first met, I was new in the area and looking for other homeschoolers for my daughter to meet. Someone in town had given my husband Sue’s phone number and told him that she’d love to hear from us. I have a lot of anxiety about talking on the phone to new people, so I put off calling Sue for days. I need not have worried. When I finally called her, we hit it off immediately and had a great conversation. Our daughters became good friends, and so did we. We talked about things that mattered: our kids, our childhoods, our views of the world. Sometimes, months would pass between conversations, but we’d always pick up right where we’d left off, as though no time had passed at all. Her friendship was a bright light in a very difficult time.
The other friend I made during this time was a man named Francis. He was 88 when I met him, a shy and generous man who disliked crowds and felt most comfortable in the outdoors. He was a retired farmer with an amazing number of great stories and an even more impressive number of old photographs. In the course of our visits, I began recording his stories. At home, I transcribed the stories, scanned many of his photographs, and ultimately wrote a book about his life called A Sense of Place: The Story of the Williams Family Farm. The book was published in September of 2007. Unfortunately, Francis did not live to see the final version, but he did see a first draft and never stopped marveling over the fact that someone would want to write a book about him. He died on February 3, 2007 at the age of 91.
The following is a eulogy that I gave at Francis’ funeral in early February, 2007. Apart from the book, it’s the best statement I have of how precious our friendship was to me.
For Francis Russell Williams, July 17, 1915–February 3, 2007
As many of you know, I’ve written a book about Francis and his stories of growing up and raising his family on the farm in Apple Valley. The book will be published in September, but I’d like to read a modified excerpt from it today in order share some memories of Francis and what he meant to me.
I first met Francis when I became a Meals on Wheels driver in 2003. He had come into the program shortly after Margaret died. His grief and exhaustion were so great that he had stopped eating and was slowly withdrawing into himself. His family hoped that having someone deliver food each day would bring Francis back into life. So, in the early months of 2003, I began arriving at Francis’ home each Thursday and Friday, placing his meal on the counter, giving him a friendly greeting, and getting on my way.
At least, I wanted to be getting on my way. But Francis always wanted to tell me a story.
In fact, he always wanted to tell me the same story.
During those first months, Francis told me the story of the day that Margaret had died. She had wanted to die at home, but he had taken her to the hospital, unaware that she was in her last hours, and she had died there. He was so afflicted by his inability to grant her last wish that he told me the story over and over, as though by repeating it, he could somehow find his way out of the pain.
In those early days, I found it very difficult to stand there in the face of Francis’ pain, when I could do nothing at all to take it away. Standing there and doing nothing were nearly impossible for me in any situation. I was always rushing here and there, doing several things at once, and rarely stopping to look around me. But, thankfully, Francis opened the door to a much healthier way of being in the world.
It happened on a Friday afternoon in the early spring. That day, I once again made my way to Francis’ door. Gathering up his lunch, I walked up the steps to the porch, opened the door, and said hello.
Something had changed. Francis was standing at the kitchen window, looking intently outside. As I put his lunch on the counter, he said, “Look at what I’m seeing here.” I looked out the window and saw nothing out of the ordinary at all. Francis was the final person on my route, and I was tired, and I was hungry. My mind was racing with all the things I needed to do, and I was in a big rush to do them.
But for some reason, I didn’t leave. I simply asked, “What is it?”
Very slowly, without taking his eyes away from the window, Francis said, “There’s a little bird building a nest in that birdhouse.”
“What birdhouse?”
“The one right across from us.”
“Where?”
“Across the driveway.”
I finally saw it. It was a tiny little wooden birdhouse with a tiny little hole in the front. From where we were standing, it was impossible to see inside it. How could Francis possibly know that a bird was building a nest in there? I couldn’t understand it.
But Francis just kept standing there, looking at the little birdhouse, with a look on his face I had never seen before. His eyes were bright and full of expectation. So I kept standing there, too, looking at the birdhouse.
But I couldn’t keep quiet. “How do you know there’s a bird building a nest there?” I asked.
“There’s a little bird that comes to the birdhouse with one little twig. It goes into the birdhouse for a few seconds, and then flies away to get another twig.”
“Really?”
“I’ve been watching him do that for the past 15 minutes. He’s not there now, but he’ll be back.”
“Really?”
“Just wait.”
“Really?”
He stopped answering, and I finally stopped talking. I may even have stopped thinking. In any case, I was definitely standing there doing nothing—unless you count waiting breathlessly for the appearance of a little bird with a little twig.
And then, there he was, holding a thin twig that was longer than he was, and somehow getting both the twig and himself inside that little birdhouse. He stayed for only a few seconds, long enough to lay down the twig before flying off for another one.
Of course, I just had to stay to watch the bird do it all over again. It took a little while, maybe 30 seconds, for the little bird to return with the little twig and disappear inside the little birdhouse again. And when I saw him fly off in search of another twig, I could hardly contain my excitement.
We stood together at the window, waiting patiently for the bird to come back a few more times before I took my leave of Francis that day. We had looked out of the window together for only five minutes, but those five minutes were a time of pure delight. There I was, standing there and doing nothing, and that was enough.
At the end of 2003, I left the Meals on Wheels route and began seeing Francis for an afternoon each week. Sometimes, we just sat quietly and watched the crows fly among the trees in his yard. He was extremely attentive to the natural world outside his window, and he would often point out the subtle changes taking place in the woods behind his house. Little by little, I learned to be attentive–to stop, to watch, and to listen. Slowly but surely, I began to see and to enjoy the world in a way that had always eluded me. Francis didn’t teach me anything by intention. He was just being himself, and he brought me along with him.
And, as I was to find, there were other gifts. Francis told wonderful stories–of his life on the farm, of his schooldays, of his parents and grandparents and children, of the Apple Valley community he loved and remembered so well. He hadn’t lived on the farm since 1963, and yet he remembered all the roads from his childhood–how to get to the Hawley pasture with the dry cows in the summer, how to get to Depot Road to bring the milk to the train with his father. His stories were sometimes sad, at times hilarious, and always interesting.
Even as Francis struggled against the infirmities of mind and body, he was never harsh or impatient with me. He never asked for more than I had the energy to give. He was always kind, always gentle, and he always appreciated whatever I did, no matter how small. His home became a place in which I felt completely welcomed, completely accepted, and completely at ease. Among all the reasons that I will miss visiting my friend Francis, I will miss the simple ease of being with him most of all.
Francis was a wonderful man. I feel very blessed that he was my friend.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg
