For some periods, I brought communion to Mary and Tommy (baptized Dominic), who lived in the trailer park on Braniff Circle, but in a double-wide trailer. This was their retirement home. Both of them had lost their first spouses. They met late in life and dated for years until they finally married.
Pete, the extraordinary manager, had asked me to go to Mary, who had contracted ALS – Lou Gehrig’s disease. Over the space of a year or so, I watched her go downhill: from sitting up in her lounge chair, chatting amiably, to lying flat on a hospital bed set-up in the dining room, speechless. In the latter days, I would break off a tiny piece of the host and offer it to her. She would nod her head, slightly, and receive it in her mouth, then take a sip of water from a straw.
One Sunday, I came to their home and noticed that the tree in the small patch of front yard was full of birds, singing with full throats. For some reason, I knew that Mary was gone. Tommy answered the door, fighting back tears. I saw his family gathered around in the small kitchen table behind him and beyond them the empty hospital bed.
Later, when Tommy was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, I began taking communion to him. 
Once, we sat down at the triangular kitchen table, and Tommy said, "When you see the tree full of birds again, Joe, then you’ll know." He looked at the table and traced the random patterns on the formica top. He didn’t last long after that.
Through most of this time, I continued to visit Stanley. Other than these visits, Stanley’s life consisted primarily of television, prayer, medication, smoking, and sleep. He had little use for physicians, Republicans and politicians generally, lawyers, or most other kinds of people, for that matter.
But, whenever he heard bad news on the TV, he would say a special prayer for those who were killed, those who were injured, and those who survived. He would often say, with some fresh proof, that the world was going to hell; then, he would add, "So, how’s the misses, the boy?" Whenever my son did come with me, Stanley would struggle out of his chair, fumble through the items on the kitchen table, and press several bills into my son’s hand, insisting that he take them.
When I last saw him, I came in, as usual and asked him how it was going. Not good. And, in fact, he was not doing well: he was failing quickly. His son, who had long since moved to Texas, was urging Stanley to come live with him. For years, Stanley had resisted every suggestion to move. But, now, he had relented. I gave him Communion.
That week, his son came back to get him. In a month, Stanley died somewhere in Texas. I heard nothing about a funeral for him.
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