Lloyd

Beth Porter has been a member of the L'Arche Daybreak community in Richmond Hill, Ontario for the best part of four decades. In her new book, Accidental Friends, she shares her experiences of the people she has lived with over the years and reflects on how they have influenced her own spiritual journey ... 

I discovered Lloyd to be very well emotionally in the Seniors Club. He had become more articulate and more able to take initiative in conversations, sharing with us little stories from his early life on the family farm, to which his father had given the name Kerman and Son, recognizing Lloyd as a partner. He spoke of his father’s success breeding a new, officially recognized line of Holsteins. He recounted the sale of the farm to the city of Oshawa and its having become a cemetery, and how that was good. “Better than a mall or gas station,” he added. He was no longer fixed on me or on anyone else. With me, he was sensitive, loyal, and forgiving (for I am sure that he realized I was cautious in our relationship, not usually doing one-on-one activities with him). He faithfully prayed for me, and we enjoyed being together in groups, especially on visits to tea rooms. He and Carolyn got along well working on his life story book, and he was proud of his book. He responded to Carolyn’s sense of humour and her teasing, and he loved Carolyn and Geoff’s baby girl, Monica. He was close to his sisters and was very pleased when a small great-niece printed him a message and drew her own picture of a cow for his book.
 
Lloyd related comfortably to everyone in the club. He could joke with the others, but he also contributed a settled calmness. It was obvious to all of us and to Lloyd’s family that L’Arche had been very good for Lloyd, gradually bringing him out of his depression after his parents died and the family farm was sold, and giving him a place where he could offer his gifts of kindness and friendship and humour, and be appreciated.

Lloyd’s arthritic hip, for which he could not have surgery because of his weak heart, slowed him down increasingly. At the same time, small activities left him out of breath. Because of his heart condition, he carried nitroglycerine with him. However, nothing interfered with his ability to enjoy the group or with his hope to make a trip to England to visit his friend Dave, a previous Mill Street assistant with whom he had hit it off especially well.

A few days before Lloyd died, and a week before the actual date of his sixty-third birthday, his house threw a wonderful party for him. (They scheduled the party early to avoid its being too close to Daybreak’s re-mounting of its gala, part of celebrating a visit from Jean Vanier. Lloyd was excited about his walk-on part as a Holstein cow, and no one wanted him to be too tired to perform.) The Mill Street house rang with happiness for Lloyd as his friends packed into the small living room. We had just sung “Happy Birthday” and Lloyd had blown out the candles on his cake when a large Holstein cow lumbered up the stairs from the basement and sat in his lap. Lloyd turned as red as ever and looked like he would burst with laughter as the two assistants inside the cow costume played the moment for all it was worth—nuzzling him and trying to lick him and then lifting up a leg (more like a dog than a cow) as if to pee right in front of him.

It seemed providential that Lloyd’s party was held early. By the time of his actual birthday, Lloyd was dead and we had already held his funeral.

Remarkably, I happened to be with Lloyd the day he died. He was in hospital awaiting treatment, not for his heart but for a different condition. Following Daybreak’s custom when someone is hospitalized, the community had created a roster so that there was always an assistant or friend with him. In the afternoon, I relieved Steve Mosher. I was sitting close by Lloyd’s bed, and he knew I was there. He was restless but sometimes dozed off. Every so often he would say just the word “Peace,” and I would respond, “Thanks, Lloyd. Peace to you also.” After a couple of hours, he suddenly screamed and convulsed, and I dashed for the nurses’ station. The code was called immediately and the team came quickly, but his heart was too far gone and he could not be brought back, though he was kept on life support until one of his sisters, who lived out of town, could come to the hospital. Meanwhile, his closest community friends and Henri and Wendy arrived and we all stayed around him, praying and singing quietly.

More than anything, I think being known and appreciated was what mattered to Lloyd. He left a legacy of kindness to all who knew him, especially Michael and Francis, with whom he shared a friendship dating from their early days in the Green House. I was grateful to have been able to spend his final months with him in the Seniors Club, and I was deeply moved to have been the one who was with Lloyd during his final hours.

After Mary, Francis, Michael, and others were settled into the Red House, they invited Lloyd’s closest friends and his sisters to join them in planting a maple tree in the back garden in memory of Lloyd, and together, we shared some of our favourite stories of Lloyd. Today, that maple is a sizable, flourishing tree. Sometimes when I am at the Red House visiting with Michael, we look at it and take time to remember our good friend Lloyd. 


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This is an edited extract from Accidental Friends: Stories from my life in community by Beth Porter, herself a member of the L'Arche community at Daybreak since 1981. The book is available now in paperback.