Richard Foster

MBE

6/9/2018

Richard was an excellent classical organist and pianist. He was the Music Director for the Madison Avenue Baptist Church.  If he ever played popular music or show tunes I never heard him do it. When he heard that kind of music he would roll his eyes. He was much in demand as a voice coach. He coached many singers who sang for the Metropolitan Opera including Jerome Hines, Mallory Walker and many others.

He was an imperial man. He always dressed impeccably and wore the finest shoes. Tailored suits. He was always clean shaven and always looked like he just returned from the Barber.

He was always on time and never missed a rehearsal or a performance. He was never sick.

He was a very independent and very private. He was a gay man but he wasn’t exactly in the closet.  To him it was simply a very private thing, nobody’s business. He did not have a significant other to my knowledge. I never saw him with a date.

Then he started to show up late for things. He missed rehearsals and even performances. He would offer that he had a bad cold or a migraine or the flu. His began to have skin infections. He would go unshaven and need a haircut. He started to wear loose fitting clothes and ugly clunky shoes. He began to walk like his feet and legs hurt him.

I don’t think it could ever be said that Richard lost his dignity, his sense of style and his imperial way. It seemed that he was just somehow trying to be comfortable. It seemed that even doing routine things like shaving were becoming a great effort for him.  

He was late more and more and missed more and more rehearsals and performances.

This went on for months. Finally he resigned.

The AIDS Virus was killing him. He informed his family and close friends. He began to mostly stay at home and then he did something he would never normally do. He began to ask for help from his closest friends and associates.

He began to have more skin infections, bouts of nausea and vertigo. He became almost totally bedridden.

Then something happened that devastated him, Because of their fear of the virus, his dentist and his doctors refused to treat him anymore. Also his domestic workers quit. He couldn’t even get medical aids to visit and help. He needed constant medical help but only his closest friends like Jeri and Kathy and a few others would visit and shop for him.

He became more miserable and feeling more alone virtually every moment of every day.

Then one day as I was running on the back stairs of the Parish House Jeri met me on the stairs. All she said was “He’s gone.” Instantly I knew what she meant. We both sat down on the stairs and cried. After we cried for a while she told me what she knew.

On that morning Richard had awakened to face another day but obviously couldn’t. He got out bed and must have struggled to stand on two canes. He slowly made his way across the room and out the door to the self-service elevator. He went to the roof and painfully shuffled across the rooftop to the ledge overlooking 90th Street. I imagine it took all of his strength for him to work himself up on the ledge. Then he began his free-fall 12 stories down to the street. It was over.

As Jeri finished telling me I instantly thought of the words from the Psalms “And He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways.” I like to think that when Richard went over the ledge he was unaware of anything after that but that he was being tenderly carried by the Angels. Tenderly carried into Heaven.