A minyan of one

A minyan is not a little yellow guy from Despicable Me. It’s a group of ten men who are needed to achieve quorum for certain religious ceremonies.

So yesterday, instead of attending a funeral, I became a minyan of one. I decided to do ten mitzvot to honor my friend Bill. Being a practical man, I figured he’d rather I do this anyway. Because above all, Bill was kind and generous.

1. The first thing I did was call a friend I haven’t talked to in a long time. We talked for 45 minutes, and although it was a “business call,” we spent 10 minutes on businesses and 35 minutes on fly fishing, family news, and just catching up. I told him about my mitzvah quest. He said, “Well, I feel great! This counts as your first one!”

2,3, and 4. I went to Colectivo Coffee to sit at my computer for a while and do a little work. I paid for my hot chocolate, then left a $20 with instructions to the cashier to pay for everyone else’s stuff until the $20 was gone. She smiled and said that was really sweet. I said “It’s for Bill.” I sat a discreet distance away and enjoyed the feeling of watching someone feel unexpectedly loved by a stranger.

5.  As I was leaving the coffee shop, a woman was sitting in the sunshine by the gas fireplace. She was wearing a knit cap with a flower on the side. Since my wife is a knitter, I notice all things that look like they might be hand-made. I asked her if she made her hat, and she smiled, and said no, that she had purchased it at “the co-op” on the east side. I said “Well, even if you didn’t make it, it’s lovely.”  She smiled again, shrugged, and said “Thanks.” No big deal, but her day was better because of it, I think.

6,7, and 8.  Stephanie made cookies for me to take to the neighbors. We took them to our next door neighbors on each side, the folks across the street, and I tried to take them down the block to some other friends who weren’t home.  I saw the light on across the street at the home of an older couple I hadn’t seen in a while. That’s not uncommon as they are frail and tend to stay in all winter.

The door opened and there stood their son. His parents had moved into assisted living over the winter after a bad fall. We talked about his parents for fifteen minutes or so, I got their details and he said he was on his way over and would deliver the cookies for me.

Mrs. Jones taught my son piano lessons when he was a young man. She was a big part of his life, and I’m glad they’re safe. Yes, they took a piano with them to assisted living.

The cookies were a good mitzvah, but talking to a son still struggling with dealing with getting a house in order was a bigger one. He said he was having a hard time going through pictures and papers, and that once in a while he’d open something and just start tearing up. He told me that it was completely unpredictable; it just happened.

9. I bought an actual physical note card and wrote an actual hand-written note to a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Facebook thumbs-ups are fine, but you can’t hold a pixel. It felt good to buy it and to write it.