Grief lingers from loss of friends

As the year winds down, it’s only natural to reflect on milestones and those we’ve lost along the way.

The losses are especially painful this year, since COVID-19 made it impossible to say goodbye.

But when I look back on 2020, despite the pandemic’s cruelties and tribulation, I first have to express thanks for four remarkable interviews.

After all, how often does a reporter get to interview four people in a single year who were marking their 100th birthdays? It just doesn’t happen.

Yet in January, I was able to interview Capi Bubp and have a delightful conversation with Estella McDaniel within the matter of a few days. Both spirited women turned 100 in the same week at CrownPointe assisted living center in Portland. We lost Capi later in the year.

Just after COVID-19 restrictions began to set in, I had a great conversation with the inimitable Walt Rodgers on the eve of his 100th. Walt is now a resident of Miller’s Merry Manor outside Dunkirk, but he can see a good chunk of his family farm out the front door.

As if that were not enough, I had the extreme pleasure of interviewing Inez Lowe in the carport of her home in Dunkirk at the end of June, just before her 100th birthday on July 1. Smart, articulate, and full of stories, she turned what could have been a routine conversation into a real treat. She knew I was retiring and was tickled that she would be my last interview before I clocked out.

All of that was great. The common thread is that I was privileged to get to know these wonderful individuals as they marked 100 years.

But with the days of December diminishing, I can’t help but reflect upon those I’ve lost from my life during the same 12 months.

•Peter Coates was a permanent deacon of the Catholic Church whose life example both challenged me and inspired me. We met in Moldova in 1998 completely by accident and maintained our friendship over the decades. In June, I shared some of his reflections on faith and life in this column. He died soon after.

•Chris Hearn couldn’t have been farther along the spectrum of human behavior from Peter Coates if he had tried. And maybe he did try. Chris arrived in my life in fifth grade with a cloud of dust and more orneriness than ought to be allowed. He was, to put it mildly, a rascal. The summer after fifth grade, Chris stole a six-pack of beer from the family refrigerator, enlisted a couple of other rascals, and hijacked a tractor that ended up being the property of the county’s circuit court judge. I always told people that if I had run around with Chris more when we were kids I would be in prison today. He died this fall, perhaps because of COVID-19.

•Gordon Kesler wouldn’t have cared much for Chris. As far as I know, they never met. While Chris and I had known one another since grade school, Gordon and I only became friends during the past five years or so. I’d interviewed Gordon and his wife Lucy for a feature story some time ago, but one afternoon I ran into him at Miller’s in Dunkirk. I was there to visit Virginia Conkling, the mother of one of my good friends from childhood. The good friend, her son Al, had died of cancer years before. So it was just a matter of chance that Gordon and I ran into one another that day. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “What are you doing here?” I responded. Soon, it became part of my Thursday ritual to visit with Gordon after I’d checked in on Virginia. He died in the hours after Thanksgiving. COVID-19 got him.

The common thread on the three who have disappeared from my life is that there was no chance to say goodbye.

Peter died in England. Chris in a nursing home in Hartford City locked down by the pandemic. Gordon’s departure came the same way.

So the grief lingers. And while I’ll always treasure those interviews with the centenarians, I suspect it will be the grief that stays with me in the year ahead.