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Grace Us with Your Presence, by Elizabeth Dede
M a y 1 9 9 2
Saints and Martyrs ˜ 265
Willie Dee Wimberly and I were about as different as two people can be.
I’m a big, strong, young, overly educated white woman. Willie Dee was a tiny,
ancient, very Black man with little formal education. However, it is possible that
I learned more of lasting value from Willie Dee Wimberly than from any other
person in my life. He taught us at the Open Door Community about hospitality,
joy, humor, unearned love, grace, persistence, blessing, and simply being.
Perhaps the biggest sadness I feel is that Willie Dee Wimberly was truly one of
a kind, never to be replaced by anyone—and he defies description, so it is difficult
to share him with others who didn’t know him.
To put it simply, Willie Dee lived on a different plane of reality. In front of
the library down the street from us there is a beautiful, huge, old oak tree. One
day I was going to return a book when I came upon Willie Dee, standing at the
base of that tree, looking up, and chatting away with it. The thing you can’t understand
is that I don’t believe Willie Dee was crazy: he and that tree really could
communicate. We, on this other plane, don’t have the ears to hear, or the language
to speak.
Sometimes life at the Open Door seems heavy and too sad for words. For
me it has been particularly so since Willie Dee died, because he was a person
who truly radiated joy and brought comedy (in its life-affirming sense) everywhere.
All Willie Dee had to do was to walk into a room, with his hand raised
in the traditional Willie Dee blessing, and a smile would break out on every face.
Even now, when I am filled with sadness because I miss Willie Dee, I still find
myself smiling when a familiar image of him comes to mind.
Funny stories abound about Willie Dee. Many of them center around cornbread,
because Willie Dee loved it, and sometimes ate it for breakfast, lunch,
and dinner. He was a stubborn old man, and when he didn’t want to do something,
there was no persuading him. On occasion, Willie Dee would decide that
he did not want to eat meals with the whole family, as is expected of members
of the Open Door Community, and no amount of cajoling, threatening, or persuasion
could get him to budge from his room. Nevertheless, we always tried.
One day Phillip Williams was on house duty, and, at lunchtime, Willie Dee
didn’t join us. Phillip went back to Willie Dee’s room to see if he could roust
him. Willie Dee very cordially said, “Thank you, but I’m not hungry today.” To
which Phillip replied, “Oh, come on, Mr. Willie Dee, we have some of your favorite
cornbread for lunch today.” Willie Dee looked at him wisely, nodded his
head, and said, “Man cannot live on cornbread alone.” Phillip realized that
Willie Dee would not be joining us for lunch that day.