And now: we are without him.

I back-posted a little vignette I wrote back in August. I don't know if anyone read it, but I'm now posting it current so you can all read about him.

His name was Clem Hamilton. He was 83. Not really the "old and decrepit" type, but definitely at the end of his years (that much is obvious now). His wife is probably still in a nursing home for her debilitating Alzheimer's disease. Will she know the man whose funeral she is attending tonight? I will see. I hope to go tonight.

I only knew him through casual, yet sincere and serious, conversations while working at Starbucks. He was a regular. Took the bus (he lived in town, his wife near, but not near enough to walk in his aged state). Got coffee. Usually got a donut or oatmeal raising cookie. Somehow he got hooked on our green frappuccino, that Green Tea one that came out this past summer. Maybe that killed him. Maybe the coffee. Probably not, though.

He told me, upon several occassions and my wife upon one, that he had a whole list a books he wanted to read before he died. My wife had the privilege of viewing it and remarked that the ones he had already read were so dark and depressing (but then, most good literature is). His most favorite book, I do believe, was Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse. He claimed it was "the most perfect book ever written".

I guess he died in his sleep. I was quite shocked to hear that he had died. I was angry, upset, to say the least. I didn't cry, but I was, and still am, deeply sad. I saw him sporadically, but was always glad when I did. Unfortunately, being on the clock, I was not at liberty to engage in long conversations. If I knew he was going to die, I guess I would have acted differently. But do we ever have a premonition of someone's death (except in the case of terminal illness, naturally)? I am glad to have had a particular interaction with him, which I wrote about later that day. The vignette is in the post below.

One last comment: Let us pray for his soul. His name was Clem Hamilton. May the Lord have mercy upon him. You are worthy, O God, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.