I’m still trying to figure out when it was that I last saw him. I’m thinking it was when I was passing through the Rotunda of the historic building where I work, on my way to lunch maybe. I had just run into a woman I know and then he came by as well, and so I introduced them to each other. Being who he was, he naturally responded to the introduction by saying that we should all have lunch sometime. The woman, obviously pleased at the unexpected level of friendliness shown her by this perfect stranger, replied that we shouldn’t wait too long as she had just turned eighty. The irony, as it turned out, was that we needed to get right on the lunch idea not because of her advancing age but because he wouldn’t be around another month, even though he was half the age of my woman friend.

I can’t remember how Demetrius and I met, but I’m sure we were drawn to each other because we shared a love of talking and laughing and discussing the ironies and—it must be said—at times, the injustices of the environment in which we both worked. He would frequently knock on the door to my large, private, messy office, burst in, see me at my desk and make a sound that sounded like the roar of a crowd—signifying happiness that I was there—and proceed to tell me excitedly about his escapades of the night before, or the week before, or about something that someone said that hurt him, or something that someone did that he found troubling. I considered him my dear friend, but also knew that my role was to listen and offer a response that might involve praise or encouragement or consolation but that might as well involve gently pointing out a different point of view. His presence was that of a huge, glowing, loving, brilliant ball of light that illuminated everything and everyone near him. His smile reminded me of a benevolent, round-faced Buddha—the Buddha of kindness and joy. And mischief.

With such a big, wide-open heart ready to embrace everyone he met came, inevitably, great sensitivity. When he would be very upset over something that someone had said or done, I would remind him that he was so much bigger than that—that his reason for being in this setting transcended the pettiness that often characterized it. He was like a big, funny, at times childishly irrepressible but unfailingly loving angel among us, with an irresistible (and quite earthly) twinkle in his eyes. And while he performed beautifully the duties of his official job here, which were to act as a liaison between our office and some of the communities in the city, as well as between the city and a traditionally marginalized segment of the population, I always told him that his real job was to show us how to be.

At his funeral service last week, one of the women belonging to the church where it was held said something that has stayed with me because it was so perfect for Demetrius. She said that people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Everyone who knew Demetrius knew how much he cared, which is why the pews were filled with so many who wanted to pay their respects and express their love and gratitude for the time they had with him.

I’ve begun to notice something. While in the beginning when I thought of Demetrius I felt a deep sadness and sense of loss, now when I think of him I sometimes smile and even laugh out loud. Exactly, I’m thinking, how he would want it.