Sunday Edition: Friendship as Sacrament

Outward and Visible Signs

I used to think that Sunday morning Eucharist and Sunday evening in a packed and noisy bar were polar opposites on some kind of invisible reverence scale.

Then, a few weeks after Mihai died, we celebrated his life in one of his regular community gathering places. Not at a church, at a bar. 

Photo by Kelsey Knight on Unsplash

Now I wonder.

First, you need to know a little about Mihai. He defected from Romania four decades ago at the age of 40. His plan was to join his brother, who had defected a decade or so earlier and was living in Boston teaching at Berklee College of Music. Mihai was staying with his brother. He memorized an entire Arthur Miller play to learn English and later told people he could speak English for a full hour “as long as no one interrupts me.” He never made it to Australia. Marly had made a brief stop in Boston to see friends on her way back to her home in Manhattan and Mihai happened to also be visiting that day. Marly and Mihai met and they fell into a long love. 

He forgot about Australia, moved to New York and he and Marly married one brisk early February day in 1984 at City Hall, on their lunch break. Because Marly worked with authors and one of those was the lowcountry’s Pat Conroy, Mihai and Marly often visited Beaufort, SC. Pat called Mihai the Prince of Romania. 

Years passed, and after Pat Conroy died, Mihai and Marly were determined to see that Pat’s legacy would include a nonprofit literary center in the hometown he so loved; Pat’s wife Cassandra King quickly embraced the idea.

The New Yorkers bought a house in Beaufort, thinking this was where they would retire one day. When the covid-19 epidemic hit, they made Beaufort their primary home. But Mihai had already made it his community. As gregarious as a golden retriever, he befriended everyone, everywhere. He met the Taco Tuesday guys weekly, claimed them as his brothers from another mother. This diverse group loved each other and Mihai knew their stories, their families, their favorite drinks. 

Several times a week Mihai held court from his favorite stool at the Saltus bar. Saltus sits on the riverfront and is home to both a lively bar and an upscale restaurant. You can’t go wrong with the snapper, the shrimp and grits, that beautiful salad. And if you like oysters, you’ve hit the jackpot. Ours is a small town and when you go to Saltus you see folks you know. Including Mihai at the bar. 

It’s bittersweet these days, for me to go to Saltus. Tom loved the place, and so did I, and I still do but it’s different now. We ate our first meal in Beaufort there on that inaugural visit in 2013. Nine years later that’s where we shared one of Tom’s last suppers, just months before he died. We’d moved to Beaufort three years after that first trip, and Saltus continued to be a favorite spot. Sometimes we ate on their gorgeous patio overlooking the river, sometimes we had sushi at the bar and if we were lucky, a conversation with Mihai. 

That last time, Tom wanted oysters. No, he wanted to want oysters.

He’d not been eating for weeks, but he remembered savoring oysters, he longed to savor them once more. With champagne. We called some friends and they met us at the Saltus bar for oysters and champagne. Tom tried, and while he couldn’t really eat that night or even sip his champagne, he was so glad to be there, to be with these friends, at this place, in this community. 

Mihai, so at home at Saltus, knew the bartenders, the servers, the other locals, and he made every out-of-towner feel like a regular. He could find common ground with anyone. He might be talking history with that young dishwasher who was studying to be a teacher, he might be arguing politics or discussing literature or wine or architecture. Whatever the subject, he was engaged and intrigued. He could listen and argue and laugh.

He kept index cards in the pocket of his sport coat. (He always wore a sport coat, a rare sight in this coastal town, he even wore it when he took junk to the dump). He’d write your name on an index card, and who knows what else, and slip it back into his coat pocket. So many index cards. So many new and dear friends. 

He could drink. With anyone. He could tell stories, sweet stories, hilarious stories. He’d hammered on Habitat houses with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. He’d marched in the Gullah Heritage Days parade with his best friend. His favorite song was Seven Spanish Angels. And he loved everyone, and we loved him back.

So when Mihai died, Marly invited his friends to a celebration of his life at the Saltus bar and restaurant, late on a rainy cold Sunday evening, after diners had left their tables. Hundreds of people gathered, people from Beaufort and Charleston and NY and Minneapolis and LA and Texas and Canada. Several people spoke and Marly asked me to offer a community blessing.

I’d never attended a memorial event at a bar, nor had I ever been asked by a friend to bless the bar crowd. 

So many memories there. Birthday celebrations and anniversary dinners, and Tom’s last attempt with the oysters and champagne. He’d smiled that twinking smile of his and lifted his glass, “Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s Champagne!” He’d read most of Churchill’s work and loved to quote him.

I said Yes to Marly. Of course, I’d be honored to offer a blessing at the celebration of Mihai’s life at the bar. It struck me as a bit of a cultural stretch, but I’m pretty sure this was something that Jesus would love.