We met when I was a young artist. You needed a driver to get you around town and I needed a job to help keep me fed. It is funny how age did not make much of a distance because we ended up spending a great deal of time together.
We would have lunch at your place and then go on trips to multiple grocery stores to shop the sales. You were buying way too much if you were only buying for yourself. This is where I learned one of the many lessons you quietly demonstrated: Feeding artists.
Opera singers, when starting out, generally have a whole lot of similarities with each other. We are all generally broke and hungry. This is where you came in. For every single rehearsal and performance, you would provide a buffet of crackers and cheese, cookies, apples and pears sliced up and whatever else might have been on sale. It was hugely generous and it was a way that you gave back to those who performed out our little opera company. I would bring the buffet over every day and set it up and then tear it down to bring it back for you to refill. Your generosity was a gift that is missed to this very day back at that company.
In spending all that time driving you around, I also helped you out with entertaining friends and guests. You had a huge supply of beautiful china and silver and could invite friends over for an evening of dinner. I would help set up and, thanks to you, I think I set a pretty mean table.
For Christmas one year you gave me an olive spoon
and I still have it today after so many moves across the country chasing my dreams.
You never had children and were only briefly married. I wonder if I, and some of the other guys who drove you around, became the sons you never had. I wonder what kind of father you might have been.
I still think of you often and the endless hours of volunteering that you did for so many organizations in the town where we met.
Thank you for sharing your gifts and time and talent with me.
Sincerely,
Eapen
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