I wrote recently about my friends whom I brought dinner to when the wife had pneumonia, back when our kids were in elementary school together. Some may have noticed I put their first names in, when I did not do so for the other person in that story. It’s because Albert would have loved it, because that part of the story was complimentary to me. Writing about dinner is one thing; writing about the time in their lives when a caravan of satellite-uplink news vans was stalking their front door is another, and I have edited his wife’s name out now.
Albert would have been abashed, though, if he’d heard me mentioning the day they were late coming to our then-kindergartner sons’ school parade way back in the day, protesting that anyone else would have done the same thing: they were late. And when their car came to the tracks for the commuter trains that run up and down the Peninsula, the lights flashed and the warning gates came down, so they were going to be even more late. Well, crum.
There was a young mom with a toddler in a stroller on the sidewalk next to their car. Suddenly, she decided she was in too much of a hurry to wait, she could beat that train, just go. Albert and his wife stared in disbelief a moment, and then horror–the wheels of the stroller had gotten caught in the tracks. Stuck. The mom looked up at that oncoming train and froze, knowing full well in that instant what she had just done.
Albert instantly leaped out of their car, exclaiming, “She’s not going to make it!” while his wife sat frozen herself, sure she was about to witness the terrible death of all three. But Albert was an athlete, and he grabbed that stroller upwards and out while shouting at the mom, “I’ve got the baby!,” pulling her as well as her strapped-in child away just in the seconds the train was bearing down on them. It was right there. They were right there. Somehow they survived.
And they went on to the kindergarten parade. And the toddler, whoever it was, lived to see kindergarten himself. (Herself? Don’t know.) Plain old ordinary life. He would be in high school now. I wonder if his mother ever told him who saved him, and whether she saved the newspaper clippings of that day. I so much hope so. We all need true heroes, growing up.
When I was so ill at Stanford Hospital five years ago, I found comfort in praying for my friends, trying to keep my focus from being entirely centered around myself, that being one of the occupational hazards of being sick. I specifically prayed for Albert and his wife and their kids. It felt important that they be on my list. Enough so that I remember that, and I not long after that was marvelling over it with his wife.
What I’d had no idea of, was, Albert was in the emergency room at Stanford Hospital being treated one of those first few nights that I was doing that, probably at close to the same time. Because: that night, someone had reported a suspicious-looking man. The rookie cops had driven down the street, found a man sitting in his car, and decided he was clearly trouble. Because he was black. He was also 59. They later told the judge their behavior was justified because, when they’d ordered him to get out of his car–without cause or warrant or legality for the search they had decided to do–he’d opened it “too hard.” They beat him so viciously that, when he was finally able to tell me about the experience a year later, choking and tearing up at the memory, “I was sure I was never going to see my kids again.” His teenage kids needed him, and he hung onto that thought as the blows rained down, as they broke bone permanently out of his knee.
One of the by-then-grown kids he had once been a volunteer coach to happened by and saw it happen and recognized his beloved coach and testified against the cops. One Palo Alto Weekly newspaper account noted that half the children in the southern half of this city had had Albert coach them as a volunteer one time or another. He was good at that, he was a good man, he was actively committed to this community, and he cared deeply about all his kids.
Those two cops tried hard to find something they could charge him with but found themselves on criminal trial instead. Good. Albert worked hard at forgiving them completely and without reservation, actively praying for them, not half-heartedly; I told him I wanted to be him when I grew up. I think he did a far better job of that forgiving than I did. Me, I kept hoping those two cops would at least gain the basic human decency to apologize for what they did to my friend.
Last summer, Albert was playing basketball with his buddies, suddenly keeled over of a heart attack, and he was gone.
I still can’t fathom it. I still keep thinking I’ll run into him at the grocery store sometime. Or that I ought to stop by the high school.
He’d run our high school’s academic help center. I’d gone in there from time to quite infrequent time just to say hi for old times’ sake, and he loved the visits but the kids always came first. If any of them had a question or needed help, I had to wait. As well it should be. I remember his daughter coming in one day and watching his face light up when he saw her.
They are planting an oak tree in his name at that school today where my kids used to eat lunch outside. I want with all my soul to be there with them. I want to hug the family. I want the reunion and the tears that I know will be going on amongst so many old friends so dear and far too far with our kids now grown, to have the solace of company in my own grieving as well as to give solace. But you can’t rightly go to part of a memorial service, it’s got to be an all-or-nothing. I thought of all the things I can do, all the layers and sunscreens and shades and and and to protect me from the effects of the UV rays on my flaming autoimmunity, and I know from many years and many experiences with this lupus that I–just. can’t. go. Can’t be there for them. Not in person. It could be suicidal. It might very well cost me my eyesight. It could so easily put me back in the hospital with the Crohn’s when I’m on a last-ditch med already for it. It’s not *if* going would make me sick, it’s whether I would survive how sick it would make me.
His wife got a soft kid mohair lace shawl from me, large and cuddly and intricate and warm, probably half a dozen years ago. I will wrap thoughts of my dear friend Albert, of his wife, and of each of his children around me, and I will knit in his honor during the time of the ceremony, knitting on behalf of a young couple he would have loved had he gotten a chance to meet them. Two young people who have been through a hard time themselves and have been coming out the other side now to light and love. I will knit to continue the support that shows them they are deeply cared about. Albert would have loved that. Maybe I should bring them a chocolate cake, too. With sprinkles.
And I had not realized till I typed that last paragraph, I am knitting it in yarn that I dyed the same color as what I knitted for Albert’s wife. Somehow, that fits. And I did not realize till after I’d saved this draft to come back to later, that I had, for that matter, started the new shawl for that young wife in the same pattern as CH’s. Wow. We ARE all in this life thing together.
Goodbye, Albert Hopkins. You were a true friend always. This planet needs far more men like you, not one fewer.