This Little Light

I staffed a service yesterday. Tom M. died last week. He was in his late 60's and was gay. His younger brother flew out from the east coast ('jersey) to take care of his stuff. Four other brothers came out too, all toughies, yet sweet, every one. They laughed about how their mother had named each of them with an "ie" or "y" suffix on their names and you could hear her call down the street for them at super time, "Tommy! Mickey! Jackie! Davey! Tony! Rudy!!!!!!!" "All you heard was the 'ieeeeee' but ya knew that was Ma calling."

About 30 people showed up, mostly people who had known him through work. He had been a house cleaner but eventually he got hired by a firm that many people he'd cleaned houses for had worked at. The stories of graditude of how wonderful it was to come home after work on a day that Tom had come to clean were so heartwarming to hear. It is my sense that house cleaners are looked down upon, a job 'just' for 'other people' often these others being considered second class citizens. But who here likes to actually clean their house? I don't mind, but well, I suppose if I could pay someone really well, who *liked* to clean and who was good at it, well, I'd probably opt for it.

Anyway, Tom was well appreciated. It was his art, cleaning. He was a Leo and he made it his art. His brother told a story about their youth and how on house cleaning day when all the family had to pitch in, Tom(my) had just washed and waxed the kitchen floor, when he, (Mickey) had run in from the back with muddy shoes and mucked it all back up. Tommy "gave me a beating." Apparently the father had a 'no beating each other up' rule and he gave Tom a beating when he got home. Tom shared with Mickey that it was "the sweetest beating I ever got, because I felt so good giving you a licking for messing up my floor...!"

..... Mickey turned out to be gay as well, so it was nice that he stuck around the city to care for his stuff and help Tom's partner close the circle. A former lover of Tom's showed up, a beautiful, African American Buddha man, and he is a professional singer. He belted out Ave Maria and some other operetic song. He sang a spiritual, and then ended the whole service by engaging people in singing "This Little Light of Mine."

I'm sure that I wasn't 'supposed' to be singing along, but my coworker wasn't there and I belted the words out loud and clear with tears in my eyes and a warm heart. I can see that as long as I have this job I'll be loving a lot of people I never met.