Then There was Ray

Ray Allen Randall.

A year ago, August 17th, I got a phone call that literally, changed my whole world. My friend Ray, had died the previous night. He had called me that day and I had missed the call. Later that night, he was gone, just that quickly.

There is not a single day that goes by that I don't think of him and wish desperately, I could talk to him. I have some of his plants in my office and on my back deck. They bring me comfort and make me smile thinking about the time I did have with him. He helped me find a passion and love for gardening and I miss asking him questions and laughing about plants I essentially murdered accidentally.

There will never be another Ray. Ever. This was the eulogy I wrote in his honor, for the Homeless Person's Memorial last year.

Ray was my friend. More than that, he had become family. Over the last 4 years or so, we spent an incredible amount of time together. He was different than anyone else I've tried to help. Everyone has said things like "you were so good at taking care of him" " you were his hero" but I need to be very clear, Ray is someone I chose to help because no one else was in the way he needed. He needed someone to invest in him and give him the time he needed to build his life back.

He was a man that had lost everything simply due to his health. I made up my mind early on whatever he needed, I would make that happen. After about 4 years in homelessness, he wasn’t quick to trust anyone, so it took time for him to fully trust that I was actually going to help him. That said, he gave me as much, or maybe more than I ever gave him. He added so much laughter and light to my life, and that is not always easy to come by.

I kept visiting him at his camp and checking on him when he was outside. From that, started a friendship I didn't expect. He wasn't able to help me in the same ways I helped him, but he was there through my grandparents health decline and their deaths less than 2 months apart. He always asked how they were doing and how I was doing. My grandfather struggled with Parkinson's, as did Ray, so we talked about that a lot. It was comforting, I think, that he knew someone that had some experience with the disease he was suffering from.

Ray was hilarious. He had the driest sense of humor and we laughed a lot. Before Parkinson’s, he was an artist, a painter, and he loved to write, poems being a favorite. The last job he had was as a ship fitter at a shipyard in Bayou Le Batre, AL. He tried to hide his unsteady hands, but lost his job anyway. That was the beginning of losing everything.

Ray loved the woods and the outdoors. He was smart and he could build things out of nothing. He used to take “the boys”, as he called his 3 sons, camping. He also worked in the landscaping business for a time and I don't know how many conversations we had about gardening and plants. My grandmother loved her garden, as well. Over the years, I have enjoyed it more and more and once I lost my grandmother in 2019, it became something that made me feel close to her and now Ray.

I was able to help move him into his apartment in 2019 and immediately he started growing things. He gave me part of a purple shamrock plant, that I was sure I would kill. Lord knows, I’ve tried but it continues to grow to this day. Ray would always tell me, “It’s a weed, Mrs. Kim. You can’t kill it.” I’m thinking he must be right at this point.

I gave him an orchid and also part of an aloe plant I had gotten at a local sale. It was just really cool to bond over such a small thing, but a thing that helped us both.

I got the call August 17th, 2021, that my friend had died in an apartment fire the night prior. My heart broke into a million pieces. He had called me that day around lunch and I had planned to call him back that next morning. He was gone 7 short hours after he called.

I always imagined he would end up in the hospital because of all his health conditions, and I would have to make the decision to take him off machines or some scenario similar.

He asked me a while back to be his power of attorney. The weight of that was not lost on me. He told me that I was the only one he had here and that he trusted me to make decisions on his behalf. We had a power of attorney drawn up and a will with all his wishes outlined. We went over everything he wanted.

He paid for an insurance policy so the cost of his cremation would be covered and he even left his kids a small amount of money. He had regrets about not being a better father, so he thought this would be one last effort to show his kids he loved and cared about them.

My husband, Chris and I have talked a lot about this precious man that came into our lives. Chris said to me not too long ago, "I don't understand how such a neat person ended up where he did." I don't either, but I'm so thankful he crossed my path. I don’t know how many times I’ve picked up the phone to call him. I think of him often.

I told him more than once he was a unicorn. The first time I said that to him he laughed a lot. He asked if that supposed to be a compliment. I explained to him he wasn't like anyone else I had met while they were homeless. He didn't have the same problems of people I usually meet. He was determined to build his life back and extremely self motivated . He liked having friends and people he could talk to. He liked helping, especially those he cared about. I explained that to him the best way I could. It was always something he got a kick out of. Many times he would say, “Well, I am a unicorn you know” and we would both laugh.

When Chris and I went to his apartment to get his binders that had all his important papers, we also grabbed any notebooks or paperwork we could salvage. Everything was black with soot, burned, or both. All I kept thinking about was he told me over and over, "If anything happens to me, grab the binders. My whole life is in these."

One of the notebooks had a short note, which from my calculations of when he could write this clearly was written a year or more ago. It was basically a short love note to his children. He had always loved them and thought of them every day. There was a P.S. on the back. "Please add the unicorn to the homeless memorial. Good-bye my old friend, Mrs. Kim Townsend." He then drew a picture of a unicorn. As you may imagine, I sobbed uncontrollably when I found this note. It seemed it was tucked away, waiting patiently for me for when he died.

This was around the time his breathing was getting worse from COPD and he just wasn't feeling great. He was on oxygen full time then. He had bad days and I'm sure he wrote this thinking he could die at any time. When they found my friend, he was still sitting on the couch. He never even knew there was a fire. He was asleep and just never woke up. The only thing that brings me some comfort is that he didn't suffer. Considering everything, he could have had a much more painful death. But the truth is, I thought we had more time. We always believe we do and we always want more time.

So, this is me, adding The Unicorn to the Homeless Memorial.

To end, I’d like to read a poem of Ray’s his daughter sent me. It’s called “Wishes”.

I wish that you would walk with me

That with me you’d come away

So like the maple seed landing

You’d root and always with me stay

I wish that we could be forever

And together always be free

To freely sit and talk between us

That you could find a friend in me

I wish that time would halt

Sometimes when we laugh and smile

So I could hold that love forever

Instead of just for a while

Ray left behind 5 children, multiple siblings, and several friends that loved him more than words can say.

There is a void where my friend once was and I miss him every single day.