All Soul's Day

One of my communitymates from last year sent me the following piece to reflect on, an excerpt from Tuesdays with Morrie...

"I heard a nice little story the other day, " Morrie says. He closes his eyes for a moment and I wait.
"Okay. The story is about a little wave, bobbing along in the ocean, having a grand old time. He's enjoying the wind and the fresh air--until he notices the other waves in front of him, crashing against the shore.
"'My God, this is terrible," the wave says. 'Look what's going to happen to me!'
"Then along comes another wave. It sees the first wave, looking grim, and it says to him, 'Why do you look so sad?'
"The first waves says, 'You don't understand! We're all going to crash! All of us waves are going to be nothing! Isn't it terrible?'
"The second wave says, 'No, you don't understand. You're not a wave, you're part of the ocean.'"
I smile. Morrie closes his eyes again.
"Part of the ocean," he says, "part of the ocean." I watch him breathe, in and out, in and out.

I think this is appropriate, particularly coming up on All Souls Day, and considering the main reason I am writing this email to you all: to request your prayers, and ask that you all might spend just a few minutes remembering an unknown, forgotten man.
I received word on Saturday that Modesto Campoverde passed away. Modesto was a 60 year old man who lived alone in a very dangerous part of Duran, Ecuador. He had been on the streets since the age of nine, and an alcoholic since the age of eleven. He survived until recently only by the charity of others - eating lunch daily at the church soup kitchen, begging on the street for a few cents from passing strangers. He was lonely, sad, neglected, and forgotten by many, including his own children, who only appeared when they needed a place to stay, or a dollar or two they knew they could persuade out of him (the only money he had). His variety of worldly possessions included a cane\n house built on stilts, which he could barely leave or enter during rainy season due to the swamp that appeared under it; a wooden cross that he wore around his neck; a Bible; a few pictures to remind him of those who had abandoned him, "framed" by old cd cases; and a checkerboard that was given to him by my housemate Jeff. And some bottles. The only constant companionship he had was Christ, who was often drowned out by the crazy, screaming voices he would hear in his own head - the result of many years of alcohol abuse, solitary living situations, and paranoia.

I could tell you many, many stories of Modesto - the way children in the neighborhood watched out for him, the way Jenny would bring him soup each day, the youth group that asked him to take part in their Christmas show, which he never made it to due to being passed out in a drunken stupor. I could tell you about the time my first year in late spring, as we here would know it, when Jeff and I took him to the hospital after he ingested rat poison in a suicidal attempt, and how he came close to dying in my arms in the back of the ambulance. I could also tell you about the five months during which he remained sober - how he fixed up his house and even had a papaya tree. About when Jeff and I walked into the hospital and he greeted us by speaking in English, or about the countless card and checkers games we played. Stories would include his dedication to Mass, and how he went every Sunday - they would include the incredible, unimaginable faith of a man who really had no good reason to believe. I would include how he passed along wisdom to the youth - warning the guys on the corner to change their ways before they ended up how he did. I would recount for you the way Conor, Jason and I would take turns staying up with him to make sure he didn't die as he convulsed, sometimes due to withdrawal, sometimes due to overdose. I could tell you about when Conor pulled the IV out of Modesto's arm, or when he literally had to clean his feces after aiding him to excrete.

Modesto's stories range from the beautiful and hopeful, to the most despairing, empty moments. Some of my most poignant memories are sitting in the one chair he had in his house as he laid in his bed with IVs in his arm, trying to fight dehydration after being treated time and time again for alcohol abuse. He would muster up the strength to talk to me about his life, his lost family, his brother who had made it as a big time bank manager in the States, the mental institutions he had lived in at different points, the voices he heard and the impossibility of silencing them. He would tell me that He was sure God was blessing him, because He had sent Modesto the friendship of the volunteers, the kindness of strangers (especially social workers in the hospital), about Fanny who always gave him a little extra at the soup kitchen... Modesto's stories go on and on, again some heartwarming and speaking the beauty of faith, of God's presence, of one human being touching the life of another; others have at times brought me into a deep depression, have made me question the world and God more than I ever thought were possible, have made me more angry and sad than I thought a human being could be capable of. Modesto has depicted the variety of the faces of Christ in more forms than, I think, the most astute theologians have dared let themselves imagine... from the beaten and bloody, to the risen and glorified.

Why am I telling you all this? I am quite aware that there is nothing that can be done now - I am told he died alone, having taken his own life. He feared too greatly the crash that would be awaiting him at a later time. I know that nothing can change that, that especially from here there is little we can do to make any difference - I know, and as Modesto has taught me, have faith that he is in a better place. He is part of the ocean - part of the great, raw humanity that teaches us to love, challenges us to question, and moves us to believe in Grace. My life has been blessed, and forever impacted, by his presence - his fragility, his weakness, his hardship, but above all, his faith. So I only ask now, in this time of distant mourning, for a man that literally has no one in the world to remember him, that you call to mind, and say a prayer for the soul of my friend, Modesto Campoverde. Que se duerma en paz.

May God bless and keep each and every one of you, Clare