Louis Boucher
February 2008
One Thanksgiving, Terry and I (John) went to visit my brother Louie Boucher in a hospital for Alzheimer’s patients near Springfield, MA. The nurses told us that he had good days and bad days, so he might not recognize us. On his good days, he would greet everyone and shake hands. Then he would go to the nurse’s station and start straightening things up. One nurse told us, “We figure either he thinks he’s running for public office, or he owns the place!”
I started our visit with remembering family stories: I reminisced about working on the milk truck with him when I was only seven years old. I told him I didn’t appreciate the fact that he sent me to the top floor of 4 and 5 story houses. And Louie responded, “Ah-ha-ha!” I mentioned the family chicken farm in Auburn, MA and that fateful day when his son Louie Robert, daughter Michelle, and I started a fire in barn while our older brother Gerry was our babysitter. “Do you remember that Gerry’s solution was to nailed us by our jeans to the front porch?” I asked. And Louie replied, “Ah-ha-ha!” I also told him how grateful I was that he and Gerry meet daily for Mass and breakfast and solved all the world’s problems before the coffee got cold. And Louie laughed, “Ah-ha-ha!”
At another point in our visit, we let Louie take the lead. Louie would speak in French, and we would use our “fifteen words” of French to respond. Louie hummed and we hummed along. When he sang in French, we sang “phony” French words. We weren’t sure how it all went for him, but as we were leaving, Louie got up from his chair took my wife Terry’s arm and told everyone we met, “Nous avons de bon temps!“—“We are having a good time!”
But I think what struck me most about our visit was the moment Louie roused himself from a mini-nap, sat up straight, looked me in the eyes and said, “What are you doing here?” I thought about this question often after that because it reminded me of Louie’s whole life and what that life said to me.
“What Are You Doing Here?” Louie asked himself this question as a milk man, while working at Assumption Preparatory High School, and at the public radio station WSRS (both in Worcester, MA). This question became all the more important after he became involved in the Cursillo Movement, in the St. Vincent de Paul Society and in prayer groups. Part of his answer to himself was to found “Boucher’s Good Books” where he could serve others and help them become disciples of Jesus Christ! It seems that this ministry and store got started because Louie bought so many copies of My Daily Bread to give away to people he would meet that the previous store owner quipped, “What are you doing here again? Why don’t you just buy the whole store?” So he bought it! He went on to make one of the largest Catholic book and religious articles store in New England.
Louie’s life stood as a question for me in my own life. When I was a student at Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA I was clinically depressed, even suicidal, until I went on retreat called an “Antioch Weekend.” (That weekend was based on the Cursillo retreat weekend.) There I met Jesus in a personal way and committed myself to be a disciple of Christ. I wanted to serve the Church and the world without counting the cost! At that point our DAD—thought both of us were screwballs! Now there were two religious fanatics in the family. BUT I thought—”WOW! At least we have each other.” While I was in graduate school at Assumption College, Louie gave me my first job in ministry. I went to Boucher’s Good Books one day a week to run Catholic Bible courses in the store annex, to pray with people and to give direction about spiritual reading.
Over the past 25 years of visits with Louie and other family members, I have felt supported, affirmed and also challenged about my life and service to God. I can still hear Louie’s question echoing in my mind. “What Are You Doing Here?” meaning, “What is God’s will for you now?” Before Louie got really sick, I told him how his life and his witness as a follower of Jesus Christ was a launching pad that propelled me into—parish/diocesan/national ministry work and has resulted in hundreds of articles, books, tapes, interviews, and almost one thousand talks around the country—helping people meet and serve Jesus in and through the Catholic Church.
And now as we bury Louie, I am asking you to consider this same question for yourself. “What are you doing here today?” Are you just remembering and honoring Louis A. Boucher? Are you just letting go of our brother, husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, friend? Are you just celebrating one of us who has gone ahead to be with Christ, all the angels and saints in heaven? I hope not! Instead I hope that each of us faces the same question Louie faced: “What are you doing here?”
WHAT is Jesus Christ saying to you bout your relationship with him and with the Church?
What ARE YOU DOING to serve others and to show them the love of God in a practical way?
What are you doing HERE, right NOW –not just tomorrow, next week, next year, or whenever you get around to it?
There is a saying Louie loved that has sometimes been attributed to St. Augustine, “What you have is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.” Let us take this opportunity to honor Louie and the God he loved so dearly, by giving our lives back to God in the same way that Louie did.