Bob Freeman died on May 31 at age 79. He was a painter, theater director and producer, gardener, deep thinker, sardonic humorist, dear friend to many, and devoted father to three now-grown children. To me he was the backbone of the HOME Van and, after his wife Arupa died five months ago, also its head and heart, serving the homeless and hungry out of the food pantry in his living room with just a few volunteers to help.

I’ve known Bob eighteen years, but we grew closer after Arupa’s death in December. Working with him on the HOME Van and to prepare for a memorial art show and poetry reading for Arupa, I came to know his generous heart. We were going through boxes of Arupa’s papers when someone came to the door for a food bag. Bob took it to him, and then came back in the room and took his jacket from the closet. “Bob, you can’t give him the jacket off your back.” “Oh, I can get another.” 

An Arupa painting

Gia, Ezra, and Peter, Bob’s three children, came to town to arrange the memorial service. Gainesville was on the fringes of tropical storm Cristobal and the heavens were weeping for Bob, so Joe and I set out with umbrellas to the gathering place, an early 20th Century house with porch and turrets. I saw some people I knew and many I didn’t. We gathered six feet apart on the lawn and porch, raising and lowering umbrellas as needed. We signed the guest book, one of Bob’s sketch books that he always carried, filled with pencil and watercolor drawings. A friend played a long mournful tune on her violin. Another read a letter from Anna, Bob’s first wife and mother of the children. All three children spoke – they had an idyllic hippie upbringing with Bob.

A few Jazz Bandits

We walked to the community garden, led by three brass instruments from the Jazz Bandits playing Swing Low, I’ll Fly Away, and many other lively gospel tunes. It rained, it stopped, it rained, it stopped, and then it came full force. We huddled under a couple of carports, still doing a pretty good job of distancing. Bob would have enjoyed our gathering under the No Trespassing signs, and the faint odor of marijuana.

When the rain subsided from torrential to steady, we walked on, past the Matheson Museum and through Sweetwater Park to the community garden. I don’t know how many plots are in the garden, but it’s filled with collards, kale, tomatoes, sunflowers, and exuberant weeds. Next to the plots is a grassy stretch, and there Bob’s children planted two peach trees, with Bob’s and some of Arupa’s ashes (the rest are going to Vermont, Arupa’s native land.) The children talked of their times playing in the garden. I read a poem by Shmal, one of the main HOME Van volunteers, who has moved to Seattle to be with family.

McRorie Community Garden

From the garden we went across the street to hear the Jazz Bandits play at band-members Jackie’s and Mary’s house – they live next door to HOME Van Central. We milled in the street, pretty much social distancing, but lowered our masks to eat Bob’s collards and drink Jameson’s whiskey. (Bob was a whiskey drinker.)

Every day I think of something I want to ask or tell Bob, and then remember I can’t. And Bob’s death means the end of the HOME Van. We all wondered whether there was a way to keep it going, but Bob and Arupa’s house was HOME Van Central, and the project – first the drive-outs and later the food pantry – was full-time unpaid labor.

We started the HOME Van eighteen years ago; it hurts to think of it dying. Guided by Arupa’s vision, we were tiny and improvisational, meeting people where they were, and doing whatever we could to help them, always in a spirit of friendship and a bit of anarchy. I am just at the age where people are beginning to fall around me, and each death punches another hole in my world in the unique shape of someone I love. The loss of the HOME Van does the same, for me and for Gainesville.

The Van

Home Van Centr