They buried Mr. Diggs last week. I just found out today. No announcement. No fanfare. No family. It was a closed casket I think.

They found him in an abandoned building in town. There is suspicion of foul play. Maybe someone beat him up. No one knows. Or maybe they’re just not telling. I looked today in the local paper and they had no mention of him. No obituary. No article about his life and suspicious death. Nothing.

Folks like Mr. Diggs don’t make the news.

It took me awhile to warm up to him. He looked like a typical alcoholic drunk or a panhandler. But he was just Mr. Diggs. Everybody knew him. He was always around town, sitting on one bench or the other. Always ready with a smile. After awhile, I got to where I could look him right in the eye and say Hello. I acknowledged him. He never asked me for a dime. He just gave away his smile. I wish I’d talked with him more.

They don’t give folks like Mr. Diggs a big gravestone or put him in a fancy mausoleum with a statute of Jesus out front. They mark his resting place with a little marker.

A friend of mine knows where they buried him. She said she wants to go put some flowers on his grave. Hopefully we can find it. We’ll look where the grass isn’t growing yet.

I’m going to ask her if I can go with her.

To say one last good-bye,
to remember,
to make the invisible visible,
to acknowledge the life and death of a
man called
Mr. Diggs.