Hugging Ricky

Author's Note: This has been a difficult essay to write. There are three pieces of "background" that I cannot assume people know that need to be explained for it to make sense. It shows how different aspects of one's life are so interwoven in a tangle, that it is often not worth the effort to try to separate them. Heh! The world is mad, y'know!

Food & Friends is an organization that prepares and delivers meal packs to PWA's (and their families, if needed) every day of the week except Sunday. It is one of the most respected AIDS service organizations in the DC area. It was started by a friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister. Carla's original idea was to utilize left over food from local restaurants to provide one meal a day to PWA's. Her goal, when she started in the fall of 1988, was to provide 1 meal a day to 20 individuals by the end of the year. The goal was reached in less than a month. This has developed into an operation providing complete, balanced nutrition, 6 days a week for nearly 500 PWA's, with a $3 million per year budget (80% from donations). This does not count the value of time contributed by volunteers in the preparation of the food, packing of the meals, and delivery. A few weeks back, Food and Friends delivered their one millionth meal.

Touching and hugging are simultaneously among the most threatening and comforting things that humans can do to/with one another. It took me a long time to overcome my own (almost bizarrely irrational) fears of touching. When those fears passed, I learned that I NEED to be touched, and I am not saying groped. (Though I am not ruling that out. <g>) Many people are afraid of touching, or of being touched, and not just by a person with AIDS, but by anyone. Touching is one of the most humanly comforting things we can do, and I know this from personal experience, repeated many times over. I recall many times when I have found, and also have transmitted, an inner peace through hugging and being hugged. The hug that came (unexpectedly) from my oldest daughter when I checked on her in the middle of the night when she was about 2 years old. The first time I hugged someone after my divorce. The hug that Andrew gave me when I was visiting him two months before his death, and the hug I exchanged with Andrew's younger (but much taller) brother after the scattering of Andrew's ashes. And Danny's phrase to Mary when she posted about Casey .... my hand in yours ....

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO GET HIT BY THAT 2X4?!

A few weeks ago, I was to do the Pulpit Assistant role at church on a Sunday when we would have a guest preacher. In my congregation, some Pulpit Assistants write parts of the liturgy that is used, and I usually do so. In coordinating the service with the guest preacher, he told me that his sermon theme for that day would be Christ's *transformation* of the ordinary Jewish greeting "Shalom!" into the theological statement that "I leave my peace with you. My peace I give unto you, not as the world gives." This gave me the key for developing the Confession of Error, that I wrote for that Sunday.

This is a true story that has bugged me since it happened last fall. I failed to do that which I have committed myself to doing. I needed to get it off my chest. I had shared the barebones of the story with a few people, who comforted me by saying, "Ed, you can't save every one," but it still nagged my conscience.

I have been a delivery volunteer for Food & Friends for a bit over three years, and, since retiring, have delivered twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Over this period, I have delivered different routes, mostly in Prince George's County, Maryland, but some in DC as well. I have no idea how many clients I have met, many of whom I will never forget, but there is one in particular. Ricky was just 34, and was on service for only three weeks.

On a Tuesday last fall, I delivered the very first F&F meals to Ricky. It was a beautiful day, and after finding his place, I parked and went up to the door. Ricky had a young, very cute, lively, little terrier that barked at me but wagged her tail in a very friendly manner. When Ricky answered my knock, he apologized for how messy his place looked (although it really wasn't messy at all) and I said something about how it was too beautiful outside to stay indoors and do housework. Ricky's answer to that was "It's YOU who brings beauty into my home!" I was stunned, stammered something, we exchanged hugs, and I went on with the route.

During the following weeks, the little terrier would always greet me, and Ricky and I would exchange time-of-day-pleasantries, until on another Tuesday, the dog was very agitated as I came up the walk, and a nurse opened the door when I knocked. Ricky's mother was in the living room, and Ricky was lying on the sofa. Even though he was very weak, Ricky tried to set up to greet me, but he couldn't make it. There was a look on his face that said, "I am seeing death, up close and personal." I went to the sofa, put my hand on his shoulder saying, "Hang in there!" I smiled at the two women, and continued with my other deliveries.

Thursday, I re-arranged my route so that Ricky would be the last delivery. When I got to Ricky's door, the Wednesday bag was still outside, so after knocking and getting no answer, I took both the Wednesday and Thursday bags with me, and went directly home. I called F&F, telling them what I had found at Ricky's. F&F called back a couple of hours later to tell me that Ricky had died early that morning.

(I watched the newspaper for a week, but there was never an obituary, or even a death notice. This is something else that bugs me: that a PWA's death goes unacknowledged by family and friends. There is still too much AIDS phobia and shame.)

Many times since, I have asked myself, "Why didn't I pause that last Tuesday and give him a male-male hug and a kiss on his cheek and just hold him for a while?" I sensed that he needed this, and the few minutes it would have taken to give him that solace and comfort would have made no difference to anyone but Ricky (and me). In my everyday, overly-busy mode of thinking, I didn't pause long enough to do the right thing. (I told this story to another volunteer, a friend of mine, who delivers the same route, and who also had met Ricky. His comment to me was, "Ricky left a nick on your soul," and he's right about that.)

Well, this is the confession I wrote as a result of my "encounter" with Ricky:

God.... We drift through this glorious world, soul blind, aware only of our own problems and schemes, missing the multitude of opportunities that come our way to witness to love and grace. Through our self-absorption we *transform* these opportunities for service to our fellow beings into sins of omission.... He gave us power to change the gray ordinariness and agitation of our over-busy lives into the rainbow-hued ecstasy of souls at peace within ourselves. Open the eyes of our hearts so that we give others the smile that brightens their day; the greeting that says that they have been seen; the touch that tells them they matter to us; the word of encouragement that can lift their spirits out of misery. Help us to know that every time we do this for others, the life-change will run both ways, for that which we give, we will surely receive. We ask this in the name of your Son, our teacher and enabler. Amen. Amen.

By taking that opportunity to draw a lesson out of my failure with Ricky, my own soul has found a measure of peace--not a self-satisfied peace, but one that reminds me that there is NEVER a wrong time to do the right thing. One may not expect it to happen at the moment, and feels unprepared, but sometimes it is better to just go ahead and ad lib it. Afterwards, you'll wonder, "Did I do enough? Did I do too much?" but it won't really matter so long as you actually do SOMETHING. Life, ultimately, is what happens while we are making other plans.

Can we exchange a hug? PLEASE!

Peace, Ricky! You are not forgotten.

Copyright © 1996, Edward K. Ricketts.