By Eddie Whitlock
You don’t know people very often. You know a little slice of a little facet of most of them.
There are a few you get to know thoroughly. Or you think you do until some revelatory event proves you wrong.
Then there are the encounters with people that let you get to know them a bit, respect them a bit, and maybe even love them a bit. Those encounters represent most of our friendships.
I want to tell you about one of those people whom I got to know a bit. I don’t pretend this is his life story. It’s not. It’s not even close. I’ll throw in some of the bigger story, but you shouldn’t get the idea that I know much more than the few words I put here.
His name was George, but he was called Geordie, and – no – I don’t know why.
I got a phone call about eight years ago. I was working at the Athens-Clarke County Library where I was volunteer coordinator. The call was from a friend who described Geordie’s situation and asked if he could work for me.
The conditions were such that he could.
Geordie was in a program that provided subsidized housing provided he did volunteer work among other things.
Most of the folks who volunteered were there to give some time to an organization they believed was important. At any given time, there were thirty to fifty people who would volunteer a few hours every week at the library.
Geordie’s program required more hours than a typical volunteer would give, but since he lived nearby, I was able to set up a schedule for him that would get him those hours.
He helped me with a lot of hands-on manual labor tasks throughout the building. I got to know him.
Geordie had worked as a laborer for the friend of a friend of mine. He also played harmonica in a band with this friend of a friend. And he drank.
By the time I knew him, he was not a drunk. I saw him have part of a beer a couple of times at social events. I never saw him overindulge. But I heard stories.
He had been a good harmonica player, but his drinking impacted his reliability. That’s a shocker, I know. He wasn’t reliable, and he could be belligerent. His behavior gradually led to his being increasingly unemployable and ultimately homeless.
He lived in a tool shed at the friend of a friend’s home. When he became too caustic to be tolerated there, he moved into one of those wooded areas around Athens where the homeless pitch tents. He lived there a long while.
Somehow Geordie came into the care of Advantage Behavioral Health Systems.
As with any public agency, there are people unhappy with some situation encountered there.
I can only sing their praises of ABHS. They don’t work miracles, I don’t suppose, but I have seen them give decent lives back to people who seemed doomed.
Again, when I met Geordie, he was in their program. Requiring his volunteering in the community was a very good thing.
He had some rough edges. As his supervisor at the library, I sometimes had to rein him in. Overall, though, Geordie worked hard and was reliable.
We became friends. He had worked hard to get his driver’s license back. He bought a VW bug with the intention of restoring it. For about three years, he poured time and money into that little car. I think he sold it for less than he had put into it.
He bought a van that had been recommended by a different friend. It had been in a major accident and was written off by the insurance folks as “totaled.” Geordie bought it, unaware of that designation.
He obsessed over that van. If there were a part to be checked out, he had it checked out. He would study videos about vehicle maintenance and try to apply them to his situation. Sometimes he over-reached like the time he tried to have his transmission fluid cooler module replaced only to be told that his vehicle didn’t have one.
A couple of years into our knowing each other, we had had a busy day. I took him to dinner after. He loved Cook-Out, so that’s where we went. While we ate, we talked.
Why did he get rid of the bug and get the van? Because he wanted to have a place to live in case he were kicked out of his apartment. I assured him that he was in no danger of losing the place. He lived up to all the requirements. He paid his bills, he completed required documentation, he went to medical appointments, and he spoke regularly with his caseworker.
Still, he was always worried that he could end up back in a tent. The van was his preferred fallback home. I could respect that.
Geordie grew to be a good friend. When I would go on overnight trips, I would have Geordie stay at my home to look after my dog, Doc. Geordie would buy ground beef for the visit, despite my leaving him more than enough food. He would make burgers in my George Foreman grill and share them with Doc.
Doc loved Geordie, too, of course.
When Christmas rolled around that year, I got Geordie a George Foreman grill for his apartment. He would regale me with how he had prepared this or that with whatever spices he had read about and how delicious the results were. That grill is among the best gifts I’ve ever given anyone.
Geordie gave me back more than I could have ever given him. He reminded me that – given a chance and the tools – a person can come back from seemingly insurmountable situations.
After I retired from the library, Geordie and I would talk on the phone regularly. He got some surprising news a year ago and called me to share it.
A woman he had known thirty years ago had tracked him down. They had had a brief relationship together. She told him that he had a daughter.
In this world of scams, I was worried that my friend was being catfished. I worried that this woman was trying to get him to send money. She never asked for money, though. The two of them would talk by phone almost daily.
Like Geordie, she was in her late 60s. She was in very poor health. She had reached out because she thought her end was drawing near, and she wanted him to know about the daughter.
Eventually Geordie and the girl spoke by phone. Again, I was leery of this. Taking all the information he had, I was able to track down the daughter online. Everything she had said about her life seemed true. Eventually I even found photographs of her.
She was Geordie’s daughter all right. Seeing her picture assured me.
Geordie spoke with her many times. I offered to drive him to meet her, and he liked the idea. We were going to do it in early 2025.
He called me a few months ago with bad news. He had not been able to contact the woman for several weeks. He found out finally that she had died. The daughter and her husband were very upset, of course.
Geordie talked with his daughter a few times after that, consoling her.
In July, a friend called me to say they couldn’t get Geordie on the phone and asked if I would go by to check on him. I went to his apartment and did the shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits knock. There was no answer.
I knocked again.
His neighbor opened her door a crack and said, “You looking for your friend? He died a week ago Friday.”
I was shocked.
Of course, I was no relation to him. No one would have called me to tell me. When I tried to find out more, I wasn’t able to because of privacy issues. I respect that. It’s just how things have to be. I did get a call-back from the coroner, who gave me some basic information from public records that let me know that my friend’s passing was probably quick. That was as good as death could be, I guess.
I hadn’t talked to him in over a week. That was when he’d called me to help with a technical issue.
Geordie had been having trouble with his television and DVD player. I had come over to help him set up a new player. That was the day before he was found dead, apparently. Based on the timing, I assume his caseworker had come for a scheduled visit and discovered him.
No, mental health services cannot perform miracles. There are no such things as miracles. There are only dedicated workers and clients who can grasp that challenge and master it.
I appreciate the work the folks at Advantage Behavioral Health Services did for my friend Geordie. They made his last few years better. They helped him have a home. They gave him a chance to serve the community. They allowed him the stability to find out he had a daughter and to connect with her.
No, that’s not a miracle. But it’s close.
I miss you, Geordie. You were an amazing guy.
Eddie Whitlock is a Georgia native, UGA graduate, and wannabe writer. He retired in 2021 from the Athens-Clarke County Library where he worked as coordinator of volunteers, community service supervisor, and vending machine scapegoat.
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