love

"And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat..."

Yesterday I attended a lovely service co-led by my friend and churchy idol Hella Sodies, with the theme "what is love?"

Today I learned that my friend Herbert died last week. 

Herbert went to my church. Tall, older, always elegantly dressed, always alone. After a while we recognized each other and when he saw me he greeted me with a smile that seemed un-Swissly genuine. Once, after I'd been in Zurich [what seemed like] way more than enough years to be integrated into the community, I walked into a Christmas Eve service alone and realized with a sinking heart that I had no one to sit with. The few people I would have called friends (and I wasn't even sure they would reciprocate) were up on the altar that night, and the others I half-knew were sitting in the usual groups that I had no desire to insert myself into. I turned around and saw Herbert, and asked if I could join him, and he said "of course" so kindly that I immediately felt a little less hopeless and alone.

Later, during the pandemic, the pastoral assistant texted me to say that Herbert had no place to go over some holiday weekend - Pentecost, I think - and strongly suggested that I take my duty of Christian charity seriously and invite him to dinner. There was no way I was going to invite this gentlemanly man into my slovenly home, but I put a note in his mailbox asking him to call me if he'd like to join me for a walk, and he did call, and after that we started going for walks on weekends. He was suffering from some kind of depression or anxiety that made leaving the house a fraught exercise but the fresh air was good for him, and the German practice was good for me, and the walks continued for over a year, until one day his nephew came to help him move home to Austria.

This is what I learned in the interim: Herbert grew up near the Danube in Wallsee, Austria. His father was a butcher who decided he wanted to open a hotel, so he sent his sons to learn hotel-related trades: one brother learned to cook, and Herbert went to a renowned school of hospitality in Vienna. The family hotel had a few good years but eventually the business failed, and Herbert found seasonal work as a host and head waiter in resort towns around Switzerland, serving the wealthy and the wealthier. At one point, he spent six months working on an exclusive cruise ship on an around-the-world tour. Later, he settled down in Zurich and for many years he manned the reception desk at the local Siemens complex. Complications related to a freak bike accident (and maybe the mental illness?) led him to retire early. His elite social skills did not fail him even in his darker times, and as we walked we often ran into people he knew or had befriended - people from church of course, but also the immigrant he'd given his bike to after the accident, a group of refugees he helped with German and supplied with cigarettes, neighbors from his building.

When I think about love I think of Herbert. About how in 99.999% of all possible timelines we would never have met, or not taken any notice of one another, but in this very particular one I got to know him. Despite my decidedly non-elite social skills. Because of his mental illness. About how a mark of love is that drawing up an accounting sheet of who-is-helping-whom isn't even possible. About belonging and family and home and sexuality and faith and generosity and linden trees and how love is both unfathomably unpredictable and remarkably simple: it's attention and time.

Rest in peace, friend.