When Stories are Finished

I was seated in a canopy of vegetation in a covered courtyard outside of Polks on Liberty. Polks is a produce market in the middle of downtown Savannah. Inside was bins of fresh and organic vegetables, plants for sale, and other wholesome things. A restaurant also operates there serving the fresh garden grown stuff in a country cooking sort of way. It is one of the things that I love about the south. A touch of country is thriving in the city and somehow I felt better just being there, even though I was wearing a tie and everyone else looked...normal.

In front of me was a plate of chipped bar-b-Que, mac-and-cheese, pole beans, sliced tomato and a piece of white bread (this is the south!). A huge glass of sweet ice tea would wash it all down. My host was having back-eyed peas and corn bread. The banquet table in heaven can't be any better than this.

I was there at the invitation of my friend Dicky Totter. We are Face Book friends and his name had a familiarity that I could never place. Anyway we had gone back and forth on Face Book a couple of times and through that medium he had invited me to lunch. As soon as I walked inside, he greeted me warmly and introduced me to the people in charge of the operation. We then placed our orders and he led me outside to the garden area where we waited on our meals.

"You're probably wondering if you know me at all," he began with an impish smile.

I nodded and he explained that he had been a patient in the J. C. Lewis Health Center several years earlier and that it had saved his life. He spent some time at Union Mission after a life of success had crumbled into a life of poor health and no insurance. Through the efforts of Michael Freeman, a former employee and current friend, Dicky explored his faith and his future. He left us and now is my neighbor on Tybee Island and operates a successful marketing consultant company. He picks and chooses his customers and isn't in it for the money.

As he told me all of these things, I sat there dumbfounded and humbled. One of the things about doing this work for decades now, I told him at one point, is that there are so many unfinished stories. People come and I meet them in very difficult circumstances. The relationship is an intense and desperate one. Then they are gone. I am always grateful when someone reaches out and finishes the story as Dicky was doing.

He told me the good and the bad about being at Union Mission. He called out the heroes and the villains. But mostly we talked about the present and what he might offer us in the future. I must say that this was one of the most enjoyable lunches that I've had in a long time. Sure the food was good, but it was the company and the conversation that made it memorable.