To Live a Good Life

 A young friend of mine died — unexpectedly last week. Way too early. Decades too early. Jesús died in his sleep, in his bed, in his small cabin, on my little farm— where he lived for the last year of his life. Jesús loved that cabin. He had just painted it.

I call my farm Little Hill, Jesús called it El Cerrito. He proclaimed himself the mayor. I loved seeing how happy he was there, how much pride and sense of ownership he beamed. I loved that in offering him that sweet safe, friendly, and beautiful place — in exchange for his help around the property — he made me a better person. I don’t know if he knew it, but Jesús gave me the opportunity to act on my beliefs. For that, as well as the joy and wisdom, and Mexican Cokes he shared with me — I will always be indebted to him and never forget his smile.

Jesús first came to me from a neighbor who knew I often needed help around my place. He had stopped to help her pull weeds one afternoon. In just a few months Jesús became my go-to garden project guy. I could always find him on WhatsApp. He came, worked hard and fast, and just had this sweet way about him.

A year or so later, I heard from another neighbor that Jesús was homeless. He had asked if he could stash his bike and bag of belongings in our shrubs while he was at work at a restaurant downtown. He said he was sleeping in parks.

That didn’t feel right. Not the stashing part — but the part about someone I knew and liked — without a home, sleeping in a park. Bad enough anyone has to do that. But this felt even worse. I couldn’t just do — nothing, but I had no idea what. I kept thinking of the little sleeping cabin in the back of the farm. My kids, understandably said “No way, Mom “ when I asked what they thought of my housing and trusting “some homeless guy“, who I didn’t know very well, and couldn’t really communicate with — as he spoke virtually no English, and my Spanish is pretty basic.

I didn’t know what to do — but I had a clear sense that doing nothing wasn’t an option. The decision was made not in my brain as in my gut. Or heart. Then I remembered a local immigrant’s rights organization I’d been impressed with during the last Trump regime, when they organized demonstrations at detention centers. I called them and asked if we could come to come to meet for bilingual help in coming up with a plan. At the time, Biden was in office. The fear factor around sheltering possibly illegal immigrants wasn’t anything like today. But I have to admit I had a couple of moments of wondering if I was doing the right thing. What would happen if someone ever questioned Jesus’ status. But luckily we just became friends and the fear never took hold.

Until recently. The idea of ICE grabbing him and his spending the rest of his life, locked up in a concentration camp in El Salvador, frightened me to my core. I made sure he knew the reality of it. But Jesús would just look at me with his impish smile and tell me “No Corcho, No te preoccupies”. Don’t worry, Corky. But that didn’t stop the worries, and nightmares. The last one I had was the night he died.

Funny how in the beginning I was worried about me and how it shifted to a deeply maternal worry for him. And even under the new regime, with greater fear, I didn’t care if I was at risk. But now I don’t have to worry anymore. Not about Jesús. Just the rest of the country and the rest of the world apparently. Now I am just sad.

I can’t write without crying. All we know so far, is that Jesús passed away, in his sleep. No sign of drugs or foul play. That may be all we ever know. I suspect apnea. Sometimes when I walked by his cabin in the early morning the sound of his breathing frightened me. I worried that he was not breathing. I never mentioned it because I knew he wouldn’t go to a doctor — just like I knew he wouldn’t leave the country even when I’d warn him about ICE; even when I told him I’d buy him a plane ticket to leave. My latest plan was to give him an airplane ticket — for the future. If he didn’t want to use it, he could just have in his pocket in case if he was ever pulled over. I thought he could tell the authorities— look I’m just visiting. Here’s my ticket out of here. That was our back up plan.

I met Jesús’ dad once on a WhatsApp call, and he often talked about his mother who cut hair for a living and clearly gave him his sense of style. I’ve written a letter to them. I want his parents to know how much he thought of them and how loved he was in this community. Jesús worked at three different restaurants and food wagons, as well as for a variety of neighbors on projects. We’re all working to help get his ashes through a GoFundMe site, https://gofund.me/ded93426 and give something to his little kids.

I wonder if the people going through his things saw the little blue and white glass charm from Greece I gave him to ward away the evil spirits and bad guys. He would pull it out and show me that he still carried it. It was there next to his ACLU rights card I had laminated for him to carry.

I’ve gone over our latest WhatsApp chats. When I sent him a photo of the bear skull I found on the beach just a few weeks back, Jesús asked me to please bring him one too. He just sent me a video of him mowing the lawn on the new green riding lawnmower, he named El Avispon Verde. The green hornet. But my favorite recent missive was when Jesús wished me and Bill well for our trip north. “Buena suerte mis Capitans del Amor”, that and the enchiladas he gave us for the trip. He wanted very much to come with us to Alaska.

I would have brought him up here in a heartbeat if I could have. Jesus got teary eyed twice. Once when I asked him about his journey to the States, but he didn’t seem to want to talk about it. The other time was when he mentioned his grandfather. I’d asked if he’d like breakfast. It was his first or second day at the farm And I got the feeling he hadn’t eaten much for a while. He told me he would eat mas tarde; that he preferred to get more done in the morning before he ate breakfast. And then in Spanish, he explained how his grandfather had raised him with a certain philosophy:

In order to live a good life, you need to eat well. In order to eat well — food must taste really good; that for food to taste really good, you must be really hungry, and that to be hungry, you must work really hard.

And then he added that to enjoy life, you must also sleep really well, that to sleep really well, you must be very tired — and to be very tired, you must work really hard.

Jesús had learned the lesson about working very hard. But judging from his near constant smile and generosity — he learned the much bigger challenge — how, despite incredible hardships, to enjoy life; to find, or create joy, and how to share it.

Gracias y adios mi amigo. Siempre…