Deborah Eckland stood in front of section 47 at the New Hampshire State Veterans Cemetery, facing a small crowd of about a dozen people. She wiped her eyes with a white handkerchief.

A Navy officer, clad in white, had just presented her with an American flag as a symbol of her brother, Glenn Chrzan’s, sacrifice in the military.

Chrzan had been homeless for 10 years in Texas when a non-profit organization helped him relocate to Concord to be with his sister. Her housing voucher wouldn’t allow him to stay in her apartment long-term, and he experienced homelessness for six months before moving to a Helping Hands shelter in Manchester, where he would be offered 90-day stays.

In January, he was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and lung disease. He left an appointment at the Catholic Medical Center and didn’t return to the shelter. Instead, he wandered through Manchester, a city he was unfamiliar with, and when Eckland didn’t hear from him for weeks, she traveled to Manchester by bus to search for him in the streets.

She reported him missing on Jan. 29. Manchester Police issued a silver alert and searched for Chrzan for 47 days to no avail.

On March 15, Chrzan’s body was found outside in a patch of dirt by an Interstate 293 exit ramp.

His body was cremated, and on June 27, his sister buried him, lowering his ashes into a small square grave at the veterans cemetery.

Saying goodbye

Eckland placed a framed photo of Chrzan on a table draped with a royal blue tablecloth in front of his gravesite. Two multi-colored flower wreaths rested on the ground against the table, and behind it, a bigger photo of Chrzan stood on a wooden easel.

A Navy officer played Taps from afar, and two more brought over a wooden ceremonial box containing Chrzan’s ashes and an American flag folded in a triangle. They approached the table in formation and performed an honorary ceremony, unfolding the American flag and refolding it for a total of 13 folds.

Once the soldiers had inched away, Eckland stepped forward and thanked the crowd of friends and family.

Eckland chose to forgo a eulogy; instead, she invited everyone to a picnic at Rollins Park to celebrate “Brother Glenn’s” life with food, fellowship and cornhole. When they were growing up, that’s what they did on the weekends with their family.

“If he were here, he’d say, ‘Have a good time at the picnic,” said Eckland.

Eckland wore a cream-colored dress and a brown woven bucket hat — embroidered with gleaming eyes, floppy ears and a yellow beak — that she bought with her brother last year at Market Days, where they spent time together the week after he first arrived in Concord.

She made a posterboard with 31 photos from various moments in their lives and from what many called Chrzan’s “spot”: a flattened cardboard box underneath a tree behind the Market Basket on Storrs Street.

She decorated the board with pink sparkly gemstones and wove card stock with sayings like “Love You More,” “Together,” and “Always Forever” written between the photos.

She incorporated a note she wrote to her brother one day when he wasn’t at his usual spot. “Whatcha doing? You pose to be sleeping,” it read. A drawing of two eyes accompanied her words, like an emoji.

Eckland visited him consistently behind the Market Basket when he was in Concord. Sometimes they would talk. Sometimes he’d be asleep, and she’d pray over him without waking him up. Now, she sometimes goes back to his spot and lies down.

“He always looked at the brighter side, even being the lowest man on the totem pole,” said Eckland. “And I remember him telling me one time, ‘If I’m the lowest guy on the pole, then that means I can always help somebody else out.’”

Remembered for his selflessness

Eckland wasn’t the only one who remembered Chrzan as a selfless man. Members of multiple Concord agencies that serve unhoused individuals — who Eckland called “Glenn’s community of angels” — agreed.

“I just knew him to be quiet, sweet and certainly pretty, pretty selfless,” Freeman Toth said at the picnic.

Toth leads the county Community Action Program’s housing stabilization and street outreach team. Once, it took their organization almost half an hour to convince Chrzan to accept a sleeping bag in the middle of winter.

“He was worried that somebody else would go without,” said Toth. “That just kind of speaks volumes to him as a person.”

Nicole Petrin, a social worker with the Concord Police Department, attended the funeral and the picnic. She had interacted with Chrzan over a six-month period and said that he always declined the various community services and programs he was eligible for as a veteran, thinking constantly about others who could use them.

“Despite him just having literally the clothes on his back, he always just believed that he didn’t need it and other people should deserve it more than him,” said Petrin. “Very, very selfless.”

Petrin noted that multiple agencies working to stem homelessness in Concord knew Chrzan because of their outreach efforts.

“Nobody deserves what’s happened to Glenn, but it just really goes to show that there’s still so much that needs to be done to ensure that people, even when they’re in shelters or temporary locations,” said Petrin. “Those temporary solutions are temporary for a reason, and it’s so important to have oversight, and it speaks volumes that, despite how many people knew Glenn and got to work with him, something like this could still happen.”

Yaa Bame can be reached at ybame@cmonitor.com