Grant Kendall.

So...
We were trying to
KonMarie some more.

Photos and letters
And I found
A eulogy for Grant Kendall

Which ended with these words:

Most of us can not appreciate that which drove him to the desperate act of this week. We can pray that he has found the peace that has alluded him for so long.

I don't know who Grant Kendall was.
I texted my friend, because his eulogy was among the letter that she sent me...

And she doesn't know who Grant was, either.

I will never know how this man's life history as told at his funeral, has become tangled up with letters to me...

He was born in New York on May 8 1952.
He died on Tuesday January 23 in 1990 at the age of 37, in San Jose CA...

He left a poem
The least I can do is spin it forwards:

The Rain Tree.

There was a long hallway to the rear door

And in the door there was a small window

about six by six with wire mesh in it

so it couldn't be shattered.

And through the window I could see

A big field of cut dry grass and a large rain tree.

I would stand at the door for five minutes, maybe ten,

And then I would walk down the hallway

And through the rec room to the opposite side of the ward

Where there was set a bookshelf

-and a potted plant a top of it of the wondering jew

- variety.

There was a courtyard outside the barred window where

someone parked a motorcycle.

I would stand there before the window in an ache of

loneliness and desperation and solitude

And without words pray a longing to be released

To be well. 

To be free.

At times earlier in my life

When I had been institutionalized and found occupation

in my loneliness by standing in the sunlight

before the alter of a barred window

I would only ask in prayer for the freedom to enjoy a cup of espresso.

I would think how the coffee tasted

How the coffee house bustled with Bohemians

and of the comrades I had there.

But now there was none of that

No visualization of any object of desire

Only deliverance.

The drugs they had me on made it impossible for me to stand or sit still.

The short pause I made at the window before the courtyard

And the doorway down the long hallway was all I could manage.

After the passing of months the rain tree became God for me

And I would direct my wordless prayer to it.

The rain tree was majestic, and towering, and beautiful

in its complexity of knotted branches.

It seemed eternal.

And all knowing.

A witness to the comings and goings of these four walls.

Grant Kendall. 13th November 1989.