Montague Reporter

Date unknown, 8:10 pm

“Caller from Second Street reports he was trying to leave the house and two squirrels attacked him. Would like an officer; states no need for medical. Officer advises it was a mother and baby squirrel who live above the house, and the baby couldn’t climb up high enough. Squirrels not injured or rabid. Officer helped caller get out of the house. He’s planning to park his car behind the house to get his mother to go to the store and avoid the squirrels.”

Parking behind the house to avoid truculent squirrels is a good idea. I could have sent Aussie to protect the man. Hell, I could have sent Henry to defend him in this life-and-death situation if the 15-pound Illegal Chihuahua hadn’t himself been killed and consumed by coyotes.

Earlier today I lit a stick of incense for Dion Drew, who died exactly two years ago. He was a supervisor at the Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, NY. My memory being what it is, I tried to refresh it by going on the Web. The second link on Safari featured one of those spy websites offering to give you information on people, and mentioned him as follows: “Dion M. Drew, 48, Yonkers, NY, Has Court/Arrest Records.”

I laughed to myself. Did he ever!

He tells his own story in this short video, which is ostensibly about the Greyston Bakery (where I, too, worked many years ago) but is really about Dion. And not just about Dion;  many others in the Bakery had a life like his.

He started selling cocaine at age 14 after watching his mother work at two jobs and still barely able to provide for her children. He went in and out of prison, including a 4-year stint, and when he came out, of course, there were no jobs. He finally got a job through Greyston’s Open Hiring system, no questions asked (including about incarceration), started out as an apprentice in the teams baking brownies for Ben & Jerry’s Ice cream, became lead operator, then lead operator in R&D, and finally supervisor, all over a six-year period.

He got married and had a little girl. Greyston saw in him a man with charisma who spoke from a deep place that not many of us reach, and asked him to be a spokesman for the Bakery (including in a TED talk). He had no need for prep or notes; instead, he had a conviction that comes not just from hard-learned lessons but also a deep inner kindness. Seeing the effect of his words, he considered becoming a minister to more directly help people. “I’m not rich,” he said, “but I’m happy.”

He was diagnosed with a fast-spreading brain tumor and died before reaching 50.

In a photo in a condolence book from two years ago, he’s wearing a pink shirt and has little hair. His smile is not just infectious but inspiring, his eyes very kind. A fellow worker from the Bakery wrote in a book of testimonials: “Dear Dion, Thanks for your inspiration. We keep telling your story to the world.”

For some reason, I thought of the man who called the police here in our Happy Valley about squirrels. If you were black and called the Yonkers police about squirrels back then, consider yourself lucky if they just hung up on you.

In the years I lived there, it was not uncommon to walk along a quiet street in summer and say hi to a couple of African-American men sitting in front of their homes, a bottle of beer in their hands, when a police car would suddenly whip around the corner, jump the curb, and several policemen, all white, would jump the men and push them against the car, leaning spreadeagled against the doors. They’d rifle through their pockets, toss the beer aside, mutter something or other, and leave. No explanation, no presentation of ID, and certainly no apology. Just intimidation, plain and simple.

Looking back now, I ask myself why I, a white woman, didn’t say anything. OK, I was always stunned for a moment—and then? They would have been brusque, even mildly threatening—Lady, mind your own business—but not more than that.

Violence of any kind, even when not aimed at me, is scary. If it’s unexpected, it has a way of shutting me down. This is what ICE counts on when they do those very quick kidnappings of immigrants. The rule is to be in and out in less than 5 minutes, before onlookers can gather their wits and start asking questions or even ask where they’re taking the immigrants (the latter is what trainers advise you to do in such cases).

Dion Drew was a big inspiration for me. Bernie loved him like a son. We both recognized the great suffering underneath the sweetness and kindness. Maria Popova writes: “It is impossible to escape being greatly mistaken about the nature and intentions of persons you meet in the world, for in the glare of how they appear and how you imagine them to be, you cannot see their shadow.”

It’s hard to know what to do, and sometimes it’s hard to learn not to do anything.

Last night I did something I should have done a long time ago. I always sit for a short while before closing things up and going to read in bed. This time I went outside and did my meditation in the dark, under the stars. No fireflies yet, so I sat there in the soothing night and contemplated what it is to do nothing even when the moment is hard.

This house feels like a funeral home after Henry’s killing and disappearance. I still can’t open the door of the bedroom first thing in the morning without reflexively looking down at my feet, expecting the little dog to be right there. He’d rush back to his big crate of toys, find Ducky or Pink Panther, and rush back with it in his mouth, ready to play.

When there’s sadness and grief in the house, I embroider things. Like guilt: What did I do wrong, what could I have done, what should I have done? Even in the face of people telling me there was nothing to do. Then I start adding other things: What can I do for my housemate? What food can I bring, what sunflowers pick up for her?

This is not so much kindness as that it’s just so bloody hard for me to stay with what is. Because sometimes what is, is plain, honest-to-goodness sadness and grief. It’s hard to contain a broken heart without rushing to mend it, mine or other people’s.

My big koan are the words: There is nothing to do. Immediately, a voice thunders inside: There is always something to do. You can’t just leave things as they are, quick, use your brain, creativity, imagination, and come up with what you can do.

The one-word answer that’s hard for me to hear is: Nothing.

How simple are you willing to let this be, my friend Flint Sparks asks. Forget Zen, forget books and poetry, just sit there in the dark and listen to the cicadas have their glorious August parties. Just be sad. Nothing else, just be sad.