“Barb likes her beer.” I heard her say that about 500 times in the 15 years that I knew her. It was the only time I would hear her refer to herself in the third person. Barb had a small frame, not one typically associated with holding one’s alcohol, but without a doubt, every day around three o'clock, regardless of whether we were in Haiti or at her home in Florida or my house in Richmond or somewhere in Peoria, Illinois, Barb was ready for her beer. Or two or three. Her preference was for Yuengling, poured slowly into an insulated mug with a handle.
It made all the sense in the world to me that Barb would be ready for her afternoon beers each day. She deserved it. She was retired. When I met her in 2011, she was already in her mid-70s. She had worked hard her whole life, raised a family of five kids, and run her household while also teaching first grade. Even after she stopped teaching, she immediately picked up and moved to Haiti to help her husband, Dick, run a nonprofit organization called Friends of the Children of Haiti, where they operated a medical clinic from their mid-60s until they were both well into their 80s and could no longer travel to Haiti for health reasons. I got to know them well while working at their clinic as a volunteer. I fell in love with their passion for Haiti, their dedication to doing anything they could to help in a country where change is slow, and life is challenging. They had a never-give-up mentality and hearts that felt so much for other people, strangers, people that didn’t speak the same language as they did. I followed Dick and Barb around for two years, conducting interviews with them, meeting with their family and friends to hear more stories about how they came to be an elderly couple who spent their retirement in Haiti. I wrote a book about their work. Even after the book was published, I still visited them often to listen to their stories, to reminisce about our times in Haiti together, about times in Haiti before I knew them. They were both such good storytellers.
Dick passed away in March of this year, only two months after I had seen them last at their home in Ft. Lauderdale. I went to visit Barb shortly after to offer my condolences to her in person, to be able to tell her face-to-face how much I loved Dick and how much I loved her, and let her know how much I was going to miss him. When she greeted me at the door of her condo in Coconut Creek, the cord to her oxygen tank slithering behind her, I gave Barbara a hug, and the first thing she said to me was, “I really wanted to go first,” and I responded without pause, “Oh, Barb, you couldn't have gone first; Dick couldn't have handled it.”
I settled into her house as I was accustomed to, dropping my bags in the guest room and checking the refrigerator for supplies. We made plans for what we were going to make for dinner. I went to the grocery store and picked up salmon, cheese, salad mix, and returned to her house just in time for Barb’s 3 o'clock beers. I went to the fridge to get her Yuengling, and I helped myself to a single Prestige on the top shelf, the Haitian beer that was readily available in Haiti and not too hard to find in South Florida. As we sat and listened to music in reclining chairs in her living room, Barb’s robe tied loosely around her body, we chatted about our time in Haiti, the memories of the volunteers we worked alongside. She would mention Dick’s passing cautiously while we were chatting; it still felt so new to us both. He had been here for 70 years beside her, and now suddenly he wasn’t. She told me that she wanted to make it to her 90th birthday. I told her I think that was a great plan, knowing that her birthday was on September 6, only six months away. Even though she was technically in hospice care, I figured that with the help of her daughter Michelle, who lived across the street and took care of her, it was very likely Barb's wish would come true. I hoped that for her—to give her something to look forward to now that Dick was gone. They had been together for so long that I worried about her without him, even though she was strong, and feisty, and still seemed full of life.
Barb was a full participant in Friends of the Children of Haiti from its very beginning. Dick became the front-facing person, the louder voice, the one who really seemed operationally in charge, but really Barb was the reason the organization came to exist in the first place. She encouraged Dick all along the way to follow their dreams of building a clinic, and without Barb having stayed home to take care of the family while Dick was in Haiti in the early days of the organization, none of it would have been able to happen. Barb held fundraisers, and she gathered the community and their church to gain support for their infant organization, and when it was finally time for Barb to be able to join Dick and move to Haiti, Barb took care of the clinic and all the volunteers, ran the sponsorship program, and organized the patients’ records. Many people talked about them as a couple sole—Dick and Barb, Dick and Barb, Dick and Barb— like it was one person—but there were times that I wish that people had just talked about Barb. She was so funny and so energetic, and she didn't hold back anything when it came to her opinions. I think that Barb's kindness and willingness to support everyone around her were so telling of who she was as a person. Dick was kind too, but Barb was the energy, the light, the clean sheets, the hot coffee—Barb was the details that made everyone feel welcome at the clinic in Haiti. She was caring and concerned, and she was a good friend to all, and especially to me.
Even with a 45-year age difference between us, what brought me close to Dick and Barb when I met them was that they had already lived such big lives by the time I came into theirs. Our relationship was based on my interest in their work, and then became about working with them to tell their story, to listen, and to learn from their experiences. I liked that the only things that we did were talk and share meals or beers. I love that we didn't have anything to complain about because our common connection was the work we were trying to do in Haiti, and that made me see my privileged position in life. We were lucky to be able to do the work that we were doing, and we rarely, if ever, focused on any amount of negativity that surrounded our daily lives. Honestly, Barb and Dick were just too old to care about much, yet they cared about everything when it came to the Haitian people. I loved that about them.
When I visited Barb in March, I knew it could be the last time I would see her in person. I was hopeful that it wouldn't be, and even before I left, I was thinking about when I could come back to visit. After I returned home, I called her every week, if not twice a week, to check on her, to ask her how she was doing, to ask her how she was feeling. We had very little to talk about, but we always laughed, and I always told her I'd call her back the next week, and she would also say the same thing to me in response, “That would be nice. I would like that.” I didn't notice a missed call from Barb’s phone a few weeks ago, but I saw a text message a couple of hours later from her daughter Michelle letting me know that Barb had passed away that morning. It was October 13th. Michelle wrote that Dick’s 90th birthday was the next day, on October 14th, and she knew that Barb wanted to go see him to wish him a happy birthday. She died peacefully in her bed, having accomplished her goal of turning 90 a few weeks before. Although it hurt so much to hear that my friend was gone, knowing I wouldn’t get to speak to her again, I knew she belonged with Dick, and they needed to be together. There is no Dick without Barb, and no Barb without Dick, and I am proud of Barb for making it seven months without him. I will miss both of them forever, but it feels nice to think about them sitting side by side, holding hands, telling stories about Haiti, Barb giggling while holding her beer mug in the afternoon light.
