Rich Koeppen,
a Lucky man!

Today a Catholic Worker friend in Iowa sent me a story from the Omaha Newspaper, “Champion of poor hits hard times, but he’s not complaining”. It is the story of a 70 year old man, Rich Koeppen, who went from wealth to poverty by his own choice and his efforts to serve the homeless, sick and hungry. Now he is suffering the worst form of poverty, severe dementia, by rapidly losing his memory. He goes to a store and cannot remember why he is there. When the reporter pointed how his fate was a ‘karmic injustice’ he quickly corrected her and said: “I’m the luckiest person you know.”

The story struck me since I am 70 years old and witness my father dying from dementia. I saw the destruction and suffering dementia can bring to a person. I fear losing my memory and here is a man who literally gave away all his wealth to be in solidarity with the poor who is now suffering the lost of his mind. Yet he is filled with gratitude and calls himself ‘lucky’ where I strive to feel gratitude and consider myself blessed.

I also identified with Rich because the author of the article said: “He advocated so much, it hurt him. He was pushy.” This cost him and his homeless shelters support. It seems like advocating hard and being pushing are separated by a thin line that some of us frequently cross. Now he feels guilty for being a beggar when he had so much he could have put some away. Of course when he had wealth he felt guilty and thus gave it away. The author says: “He just feels guilty for having so much when others have so little.”

Now his guilt is being replaced with terror, the terror of not remembering. Rich gave his wealth away to the poor, homeless and marginalized and now he is losing his memory. Yet he still feels gratitude. His story of riches to rages inspires allof us.

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