His name was Larry....
Feb. 2nd, 2019 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogRelative normalcy returned today. Still plenty of snow to melt, but they're calling for 50F temps by Monday. At least one friend referred to this pattern as the "bipolar vortex." All in all, Eleanor missed four days of work, and I was in second gear at best for the past three. Around the corner, a water main blew, probably on the coldest night; I came on it with Pepper on our walk yesterday, and it flooded the whole street before freezing into a brown spiky hockey rink.
By far, though, the saddest part of the whole ordeal was the loss of a life in our neighboring village. Only in death did we learn the full name- Lawrence Bierl- of the homeless man everyone knew just as "Larry." Police found him at a corner on the edge of the village, dead of exposure in a bus stop shelter on the coldest night in probably 20 years.
Larry was a fixture, mostly on Main from the heart of the village to the 290; best guesses are that he slept somewhere in the woods adjacent to the expressway. He never actively panhandled, at most giving you a look; I never gave, but I never avoided. And those who did help support him commented that he would only accept the help he wanted. A gift card to Timmy's or Tops, he'd take; offers of shelter or other active assistance, never. Even on that final day, he stopped at a fairly fru-fru new hotel on Main; the owners fed him, which he accepted, and offered him a room, which he declined.
Thursday brought newspaper articles and other recollections of people encountering him, trying to help him, never being afraid of him. Thursday also brought a difficult day in Eleanor's recovery from a stupid sinus infection: Doc-in-a-Box screwed up the note she needed for an extra day cleared from going back to work, and it took close to four hours before they finally saw her and scribbled it out. We were both in fairly rough shape by nightfall, and got into some words, but ultimately found our way through it all. I then resolved to act on an idea I had earlier in the day: I wasn't just going out to Wegmans to get flowers for her (which I did), but I picked these up to bring to the bus stop the next morning:
My thought at the time was, I'd be happy to be the first to bring flowers there, but even happier if someone(s) else had done so already. Turned out, well, sort of:
Thursday was another bitter cold night, after all, and that morning not much warmer; it didn't break 20F until sometime today. As of early this afternoon, at least two other arrangements were on the bench next to mine, and I'm trying to arrange for the altar flowers from my old church to get brought over tomorrow after the service. A GoFundMe for a memorial service quickly exceeded the amount requested in it; it will be sometime in March. It may or may not be warmer then, but the pouring of hearts in the past few days brought plenty of warmth into a record-chilly time and place.
----
ETA. Just a few final passing thoughts on this passing.
Eleanor had come across a comment on a friend's post about Larry, suggesting that his family was somehow complicit in this death. It seemed both contradictory to his own spirit and premature for a family that, above all, needed to grieve. This morning's obituaries brought their response, and hopefully will put to rest, not only Larry, but that kind of claptrap:
Meanwhile, I called off my effort to add flowers to the collection I'd started, because when I drove by the shelter this morning, all the arrangements were gone. We later heard that there was some confusion over which shelter had been his actual final stop, and that one just down the road- one which the daughter of a dear friend gets her bus downtown from every day- had begun its own tribute. I went out just now to check it out, and it's full of lovely sentiments, and not just of flowers:
Four nights ago, Larry died on one of the most brutally cold nights in any recent memory. As I drove over there in 50F temperature, kids were riding bikes down Park Club Lane. As another tragically taken soul once sang:
All my life's a circle.
By far, though, the saddest part of the whole ordeal was the loss of a life in our neighboring village. Only in death did we learn the full name- Lawrence Bierl- of the homeless man everyone knew just as "Larry." Police found him at a corner on the edge of the village, dead of exposure in a bus stop shelter on the coldest night in probably 20 years.
Larry was a fixture, mostly on Main from the heart of the village to the 290; best guesses are that he slept somewhere in the woods adjacent to the expressway. He never actively panhandled, at most giving you a look; I never gave, but I never avoided. And those who did help support him commented that he would only accept the help he wanted. A gift card to Timmy's or Tops, he'd take; offers of shelter or other active assistance, never. Even on that final day, he stopped at a fairly fru-fru new hotel on Main; the owners fed him, which he accepted, and offered him a room, which he declined.
Thursday brought newspaper articles and other recollections of people encountering him, trying to help him, never being afraid of him. Thursday also brought a difficult day in Eleanor's recovery from a stupid sinus infection: Doc-in-a-Box screwed up the note she needed for an extra day cleared from going back to work, and it took close to four hours before they finally saw her and scribbled it out. We were both in fairly rough shape by nightfall, and got into some words, but ultimately found our way through it all. I then resolved to act on an idea I had earlier in the day: I wasn't just going out to Wegmans to get flowers for her (which I did), but I picked these up to bring to the bus stop the next morning:
My thought at the time was, I'd be happy to be the first to bring flowers there, but even happier if someone(s) else had done so already. Turned out, well, sort of:
Thursday was another bitter cold night, after all, and that morning not much warmer; it didn't break 20F until sometime today. As of early this afternoon, at least two other arrangements were on the bench next to mine, and I'm trying to arrange for the altar flowers from my old church to get brought over tomorrow after the service. A GoFundMe for a memorial service quickly exceeded the amount requested in it; it will be sometime in March. It may or may not be warmer then, but the pouring of hearts in the past few days brought plenty of warmth into a record-chilly time and place.
----
ETA. Just a few final passing thoughts on this passing.
Eleanor had come across a comment on a friend's post about Larry, suggesting that his family was somehow complicit in this death. It seemed both contradictory to his own spirit and premature for a family that, above all, needed to grieve. This morning's obituaries brought their response, and hopefully will put to rest, not only Larry, but that kind of claptrap:
Meanwhile, I called off my effort to add flowers to the collection I'd started, because when I drove by the shelter this morning, all the arrangements were gone. We later heard that there was some confusion over which shelter had been his actual final stop, and that one just down the road- one which the daughter of a dear friend gets her bus downtown from every day- had begun its own tribute. I went out just now to check it out, and it's full of lovely sentiments, and not just of flowers:
Four nights ago, Larry died on one of the most brutally cold nights in any recent memory. As I drove over there in 50F temperature, kids were riding bikes down Park Club Lane. As another tragically taken soul once sang:
All my life's a circle.