And He Was in the Skeet Shooting Hall of Fame, Too

I don't know if it's my stage of life, or just life being life. But for most of 2019, I felt like I was overwhelmed by death.

Celebrities. Sports legends. Relatives. Close friends. Relatives of close friends. Almost every day, it seemed, I was saying goodbye to someone who occupied at least a small corner of my mind and heart. Have you ever felt that way?

A Wide-Screen Tribute to Morrie at a December NKFI Forum.

So rapidly were souls "leaving this Earth," as my mother used to say, that I didn't have time to mourn them individually. It was as if I were in a constant state of grieving. However, since we're in that annual period of "Remembering Those We Lost" in the previous year and starting anew, I didn't want the window to close without acknowledging one loss that hit me particularly hard: Morrie Funkhouser.

After all, how can you not remember a guy named Morrie Funkhouser?

Morrie –– or Morris E. Funkhouser II, if you please –– was one of the first people I met after I was encouraged to join the local transplant support group, hauntingly named "Second Chance," shortly after my kidney transplant in November 2011.

Now Frank Veach, the longtime leader of the group, is a delightfully engaging and salt-of-the-earth fellow, a bit of a goofball, difficult not to like. I accepted his welcome into the fold with gratitude.

However, if memory serves I was the only person of color in the group when I joined. (Dave Freeman and his wife Mara have since come on board to help even the odds.) I had only moved from Detroit to the middle of corn and soybean country a year or so before, and most of my time in my new prairie home was consumed by medical appointments, surgery and recuperation. I really didn't know the lay of my land very well.

I think most black people know that feeling of being the only in the room. Stranger in a strange land, I had no idea what to expect.

Then I see Morrie: older, weathered, a factory machinist all his life. The guy at the end of the bar. I stereotyped his gruff exterior the moment I saw him, I'm sure.

Morrie, in a Glamor Shot.

And I could not have been more wrong. In how many situations could an African American writer from Detroit and an instrument maker from central Illinois become chuckle buddies?

Morrie was warm, wonderful and wise. He was the longest surviving kidney transplant recipient in our little band, 27 years and counting before other causes took him from us last June at the age of 72. He was afflicted with polycystic kidney disease, a genetic disorder in which fluid-filled sacs, or cysts, grow in the kidneys and disrupt their ability to do their job in filtering waste products from the blood. About one in 1,000 people worldwide have the condition, including Morrie's son, Anthony, who inherited it.

In most kidney transplants, the failing kidneys are left inside the body because, hey, they still may have some function left, and what could it hurt? In Morrie's case, his cyst-covered kidneys became so huge and invasive –– nearly 13 pounds each –– that both organs had to be extracted.

He never complained, and almost never said no to an opportunity to serve, inform or assist in some organ donation drive or renal-related campaign on behalf of the National Kidney Foundation of Illinois (NKFI), Gift of Hope, or Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White's Life Goes On crusade.

I remember spending many delightful hours chatting with Morrie under a canopy or in a tent somewhere in the region, encouraging people to become donors and answering their questions as living examples of what transplants can mean to people's lives. He was an outstanding ambassador for the cause, and at an NKFI "Living With Kidney Disease" seminar last month in Champaign, a moment was set aside to honor his life and dedication. Class move.

My Friend, the Hall of Famer.

And yet, as is sadly the case with even our closest friends, there were several things about him I did not know until I read his obituary. For example, even though we talked about music, I had no idea he was a talented, longtime musician who played more than a quarter century in a band called The Variations. And he never once mentioned to me his gift for skeet shooting, a  passion that led to his induction into the Illinois Skeet Shooting Association Hall of Fame in 2011.

Glad he liked me; he probably could have picked me off at 1,000 feet.

He was blessed to find love again after his first wife, Ann, died in 2005. I did not know Ann, of course, but his second wife, Sandy, was something special. Bubbly, blonde and vivacious, she's the kind of person who brightens a room just by entering it.

She clearly loved Morrie very much and they planned to care for each other well into their golden years, a scenario that tragically was cut short far too soon. Morrie's health declined so rapidly that by the time I heard he was hospitalized and hurried home from my summer vacation, he was gone.

I understand Sandy has since relocated out of state. Good for her, bad for us. I got to visit with her at his visitation, but she often accompanied Morrie to our monthly support meetings and I miss her. She is quite a lady.

Strangely, Funkhouser was the second "Maurice" who had a seminal impact on my life. The late Maury DeJonge (say "DeYoung") was a legendary political reporter for the Grand Rapids Press who later went on to become the county clerk for Kent County in West Michigan.

My first job out of college was at the Press, and I was given the desk directly across from his. He was a close personal friend of Gerald R. Ford, knew everything taking place in local government almost before it happened, and it was a revelation for this cub reporter to watch him work.

What a Handsome Young Morrie! 

For reasons I never understood, DeJonge took a liking to me and placed me under his wing. I'll never forget the day we were walking out of the newsroom together to our separate assignments and I happened to glance at the wall clock. "Looking at that clock?" he intoned. "Forget it. The news doesn't keep a 9-to-5 schedule."

I have been truly blessed. The Morrie the merrier, I guess.

We will gather in January for our next "Second Chance" group meeting, and undoubtedly we will miss Morrie again. I'm not certain when, or if, we will ever stop.

Memorial contributions may be made in Morrie Funkhouser's name to the Polycystic Kidney Foundation at https://pkdcure.org/tribute-donation, or at 1001 E. 101st Terrace, Suite 220, Kansas City, MO 64131.