Remembering my friend Peter Muise

Posting here because LinkedIn tells me this message is 2000 characters too long for a regular post

Our community lost a giant last night. Peter Muise was a dear friend and one of my biggest mentors. He achieved great success in the business world, but to my mind, he was a non-profit leader trapped in a banker’s body. Sometimes in my line of work, we look at businesspeople getting involved a little cynically – they’re often in it to market their business or round out their resume. With Peter it was the opposite. He took pleasure in using his gifts to enhance community work and to help the most vulnerable. I’d joke that he worked at the bank just so he’d have access to a printer.

He could motivate a room of community leaders into action. He’d ask gentle questions to patiently guide a group to the right strategic solution. He was quick to say he didn’t have all the answers, though he was almost certainly closer to them than the rest of us. And when it was most necessary, he would cut through the bullshit and say what everyone else was thinking but was unwilling to say. In the last few months alone, we’ve missed his absence at community tables and we know now the void will remain.

Times like these are opportunities to reflect, and there are few better ways of doing so than revisiting some old pictures. Here are three with meaning:

In the first, Peter and I meet for the first time ever. He was awarded SouthCoast Today’s Man of the Year award the same year I was given the Youth of the Year Award and we were both invited to the same ceremony. I was maybe a month into my elected service, working part-time in Fall River and attending classes at UMass Dartmouth. Peter was being applauded for his extensive work in the community, including as chairman of the Homeless Service Providers’ Network. Some eight years later, I write this post having concluded my time on the School Committee and being the current chairman of the Homeless Service Providers’ Network, a role the me in this picture couldn’t possibly imagine at the time. I had heard of him through mutual friends as a good guy, a CEO who made a habit of walking around First Citizens’ offices asking employees at all levels how they were doing, how their families were, remembering names and life events. I wanted to know him better and was glad to meet him then.

A wise person said “a friendship forged in the fires of adversity is as strong as one that has weathered the test of time.” In the second picture, our friendship was simply forged in the weather. Fire would have been nice, because we sure were cold.

In his capacity leading the HSPN and Rise Up For Homes, he and the group organized an event to raise awareness of the plight of the unhoused by inviting community leaders to spend a night outside. I joined and we got to know each other in the middle of the night on the Normandin soccer field, in part because a group of us couldn’t sleep, and in part because the conversation was so good you didn’t want to. I was just starting my career at PACE at the time and relished the opportunity to be around these experienced leaders. I felt at home. Over the next few years he would become a mentor to me, personally, professionally, and politically. Without his encouragement, I’m not where I am today.

The last picture was taken at the end of January, some 8 years after the first photo and 7 years after the second. It was the last time I saw my friend in person, at one of the many breakfasts he organized – this one to discuss strategies to ensure federal ARPA funds are set aside for alleviating New Bedford’s housing and homelessness issues. He wasn’t feeling great, but embraced his role as the group’s convener. Knowing he was heading in for his transplant soon after, I snuck this picture on the off chance it was our last breakfast together. I’d have actually gotten in the picture with him if I really believed it was, but like many I thought he was invincible and would bounce back from this latest episode as he had several others before. We texted a bit in the weeks after, and he was one of the first to know Sharon and I are expecting in August. I told him before almost everyone else because I thought it might bring a little cheer at a tough time and I hope it did.

Peter will be missed by so many – all the others with similar or even deeper stories of mentorship and impact. He’ll be missed by people who he’d never meet, people who would benefit from his advocacy and passion for excellence in community work. He’ll be missed by me. His tenacity in dealing with and bouncing back from his medical situations, knowing even the best case scenario was a rocky road ahead, will never be lost on me. Nor will the sight of him joining Zoom meetings from his hospital bed because he had a perspective that needed to be shared.

He leaves behind the legacy of a life well lived, his better half (and community leader in her own right) Robin, and their beautiful family. Beyond supporting them all at this difficult time, it becomes our job to keep his memory alive and honor it by building upon the work he cared about so deeply. Rest easy my friend.