In the middle of June in Nashville, a few days before the summer became unendurably hot, I was in the car with Charlie Strobel, driving out towards the river. To grow up Catholic in Nashville is to know at least some of the members of the Strobel family, and long before Charlie and I became friends, I knew the stories of what he had accomplished, and what he had lost. We were on our way to the Stadium Inn to visit some homeless men who were about to get their own apartment, and while he drove, Charlie told me a story about Father Dan Richardson. Father Dan was the priest at Assumption, the North Nashville parish in the poor neighborhood where Charlie grew up. It was not too far from where we were headed now.

 

“Father Dan was a father figure to me,” Charlie said, his own father having died when he was four. “We lived down the street from the church, and by the time I was in the third or fourth grade, I was an acolyte.”

 

Assumption was a parish with an older congregation, and Charlie remembered the funerals coming one after the other. For every funeral, Father Dan gave the exact same homily. “We knew it word for word. We could mouth it along behind him,” Charlie said, and though he is sixty-nine now, a good distance from his altar boy self, he begins the recitation:

 

“Father Dan would say, ‘We’re on this earth to get ready to die. And when we die, God’s not going to say, ‘Charlie [Ann, Sally, John, fill-in-the-blank], what did you do for a living? How much money did you make? How many houses did you have?”’ God is only going to ask us two questions: ‘Did you love me?’ and, ‘Did you love your neighbor?’ And we can imagine that Charlie [Ann, Sally, John, fill-in-the-blank] will answer truthfully, saying, ‘Yes, Lord, You know I loved you. You know I loved my neighbor.’ And then God will say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. Now enter into the kingdom of heaven.’”

Charlie smiled at the thought of it. “He nailed it every single time. He had this soft voice, and his cadence was perfect. Even though I knew exactly what was coming, it never failed to grab me. It was sad, especially if I knew the person who had died, but I never heard it as anything but a positive and hopeful message. We come from God, we return to God, so death was never frightening.”

 

Charlie realized then that he had missed his exit. Neither one of us had been paying attention to the interstate, and neither of us was sorry. It gave him time to finish the story.

 

“Even after I grew up and became a priest, I could never call him Dan. It was always Father Dan. I’d always say to him, ‘What are you going to get me for Christmas this year?’ And he’d say, ‘A bridge,’ because the homeless lived under bridges.” Father Dan, who was Irish, was always one for a joke.

 

“When I went to see him for the last time before he died, we had a personal talk, a father-son talk, and I told him how much I loved him. Then I said, ‘Now I’m going to be your priest,’ and I did his whole routine—‘We are on this earth to get ready to die, and when we die, God’s not going to ask, “Dan, how much money did you make?” He’s going to ask two questions: “Did you love me?” and, “Did you love your neighbor?” And I know you’ll say, “Yes, Lord, You know I loved you. You know I loved my neighbor.” And God will say, “Enter, good and faithful servant.” ’

 

I was struck by how often the lessons we learn when we’re young, the things we could never imagine needing, make it possible to meet what life will ask of us later. “I’ve grown to be who I am,” Charlie said, “because of those life experiences each of us has.”