By Robert R. Schwarz
(originally posted September 21, 2014)
When I am weak, then I am strong
( The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians, 12:10 )
God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong
( 1 Corinthians , 1: 27 )
If we should ever feel burdened by the knowledge
of our weakness…let us remember what the Lord
told St. Paul during his time of trial: My graces
is sufficient, for my power is made perfect
in weakness .
( from Conversations with God by Francis Fernandez)
Many years ago I was saddened and also dismayed by the death of two
friends whom I had considered paragons of human strength: emotional, physical,
intellectual. As a journalist, their deaths left me with a need to know why our society
appears confused about the core of human strength. Should we call a man or a woman
" strong" when they excel in many physical feats; and label them "weak" and when we have witnessed
them again and again over a lifetime behaved with
uncontrollable moral weakness?
I wrote this several years ago and have chosen, for various reasons, not to edit it as I inclined
recently to do.
I began to probe the question about strong humans by recalling those thousands of men and
women who, despite the brutal clubbing and lunges of police dogs, stayed the
course of their freedom march in Selma, Alabama; and of the thousands marching
in 1930 in India despite being savagely beaten by soldiers determined to stop a
nation-wide protest against a British imposed harsh tax on simple salt. And then I
read the Wall Street Journal describing the U.S. Navy's SEALS fighting a battle a few decades ago in
the Middle East. It quoted Lt. Cmdr. Eric Greitens, himself, a SEAL in the U.S. Navy Reserve:
"Almost all the men who survived possessed one common quality;. Even in great pain they remained
firm and steadfast. They also had a heart large enough to dedicate themselves to a higher purpose. "
I understood the essence of human strength better when I reflected on the lives of three friends: a
corporate vice president, a psychiatrist, and a department store clerk. ( I have changed
some names ).
***
Dillon was a college varsity wrestler and cross-country runner who later wore
captain bars as a U.S. Infantry paratrooper during the Korean Conflict. He married a
smart, classy woman who lovingly bore him three children and saw that they were
raised on a good old fashioned regimen of American morality, work ethics, and
patriotism. Dillon became vice president for an international consulting company,
managing several hundred employees.
According to Dillon, drinking with the boys was part of the job. "You find out
what the competition is doing at the hotel bar," he once told me. He could come home
at 3 a.m., fall asleep on the living room floor watching television, then rise at 6:30
a.m. with full steam for work. "Dillon has amazing recuperative powers," his wife
would say. But after twenty-five years of riding the corporate high, Dillon's powers
were not recharging so quickly. There had been a lot of nights with the boys at hotel
bars. "I can stop drinking anytime I want, "he explained in a huff to his wife after
walking out of his first—and last— Alcoholic Anonymous meeting.
One afternoon, Dillon, his wife and I were sitting in my home making
arrangements for a mutual friend's funeral. I knew of the reoccurring troubles Dillon's
drinking had brought to his work and family life. I turned to him and, as if asking
an academic question, and said , " Dillon. would you sacrifice anything for the love of your
wife? " He thought for a moment before realizing he was being confronted with something
very important. "Oh," he said, dismissing my question as unworthy of any
thought, "you mean the drinking." He said no more, and, unfortunately, neither did
his wife nor I . But the point had been made: Though you love your wife
dearly, Dillon, do you have the courage, the guts to do something extremely vital to
your family's happiness?
A couple of years later, Dillon, now separated from his wife and drinking a tumbler
of vodka before noon, sat down one day, I truly believed, to assess his situation. The
mind that once provided leadership for cadres of managers and also handled the self-
sacrificing logistics of raising two daughters and a son, was believing, I surmised now,
that things could be better. But really, it's not all that bad. Right?
With that, he now tried to rise from his chair but couldn't. The legs which at college could
race three miles in less than 15 minutes and which later could seize the ground after a
parachute drop from ten thousand feet up, had suddenly become paralyzed. Dillon
died a few weeks later. God loved him, I believed.
***
My other friend was a psychiatrist whom I met in an interview for a series I
was writing about a mental health center. Dr. Rudy Sunburg was 42, a tall, balding,
cigar-smoking, humor-witted, North Carolina boy with an I-like-people personality.
Rudy's hearty laugh compensated for the barely tolerable puns he told to staff ,
family and patients.
Everyone wanted to claim friendship with Rudy. He was a fun-loving
father to a Mexican-born boy whom he and his wife had adopted soon after Rudy had left
a successful general practice for psychiatry. We and our wives bonded during the
years Rudy and I served on the board of a county mental health association.
My wife and I often visited Rudy in his home and learned he was an
atheist who actually carried this ID in his wallet. This fact never seemed to bother his
colleagues or patients, that is until Rudy was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer.
Pain now forced him to sleep in a hardback chair at night, facing the back of the
chair and resting his head on folded arms. A few days before Rudy was
hospitalized, I looked for an opening to say what I knew must be said to a good
friend. I waded in with: "Rudy, what if you are wrong about God and everything about Him. At
least cover your bases and—" . I didn't know what to say next. In those days I could not
articulate the Christian faith very well nor had yet embraced it, . But Rudy gave me his full attention
but did not go beyond polite smiling .
The next week I visited Rudy at a Chicago hospital. Still the atheist, Rudy
joked about the morphine which had constipated him so severely that it required a
nurse—a friend of his— to give him relief by her hand. A Jewish lady chaplain entered,
and we all made witty remarks. Though Rudy was expected to fight off
his foe for several more weeks, he died suddenly the next day.
Later, I couldn't help but ask myself: Had my friend died with at least one
thought of God and His omnipresence, His omniscience, His omnipotence? Had my
friend, before his final darkness, had he any thought of a heaven, that maybe, just
maybe his atheism had tragically failed him ? Or did my friend, with his disciplined empirical
certitude, believe he was facing the absolute end of himself —forever? If so and if he
saw his very last days of any existence as a nothing but unceasing pain with a mind spinning in a
cloud of morphine? I dreaded to know the truth. I learned that the day after I left his room, this
wonderful psychiatrist, as he had been doing since his arrival here, wrote a prescription for himself and then handed it to his obedient nurse friend.
Then Came Philip: A Rare Breed
The few who regularly interacted with Philip saw him as a private, gentle,
and meek-spirited man who rarely asserted himself, and when he had to, it was with
utter calm and absence of any guile. I found it interesting that my friend would rather
face the occasional hoard of grasping customers at the department store which
employed him than the give-and-take of a common human relationship. Other than an
occasional wish to be a few inches taller than his five-feet-five inches, his ambitions
were to be an honest and a diligent salesperson in his furniture section ; and to retain a
sane and secure lifestyle that allowed him frugality and simplicity.
Yet Philip's speaking voice belied his appearance, and you might assume it
sounded like a radio announcer or a corporate CEO, for it had a mellow timbre that
resonated self-control and perfect diction. Though you had never interacted with this man , you'd be
willing to risk an opinion that this man was kind and trustworthy--and you'd be right. . His
face hardly ever showed any trace of interior conflict.
Philip was a college graduate and had majored in business administration.
Except for the 20 years of the live-in companionship he had given without fault
to his widowed mother, Philip had lived the rest of his life alone as a bachelor in a studio
apartment in Arlington Heights, Illinois. According to his sister (whom I knew
before her death), Philip never dated except for a girl he took to his high school prom.
As best I know, Philip had no psychological hang-ups, nor did he ever appear to
have any passions, disordered or otherwise; this, however, would belie his enormous
empathy for other people's suffering. Once, while relating to me an incident at his
neighborhood supermarket when a runaway car struck and killed a teenage girl,
Philip's eyes were wet with tears.
Though he had a low discomfort threshold for crowds, he enjoyed nothing more than using his
innate and low-key salesmanship skills to please a customer. I always had the notion that the counter
which separated Philip from his customers served as a sort of shield that emboldened him to come
closer to people in a spirit of friendship.
I believe that Philip, whom I had known off and on since boyhood days, was
a moral man in all respects. Except for the one time my wife and I took Philip to
a church Christmas pageant, I never knew Philip to attend a church service. He
could not emotionally tolerate all the human intimacy of any church service. " I just can't,"
he once confided to me with regret. Yet he always took his turn at prayer at our weekly coffee and
donut meetings.
When Philip was a teenager, his father died of a rare blood ailment while the
family was vacationing in northern Wisconsin. For months the tragedy traumatized Philip.
This incident and that of witnessing a lightning bolt kill three soldiers
marching closely behind him during his Army basic training caused him
for all time to be exceptionally prudent about anything or anyone that
could possibly diminish his health or his modest bank account.
Typical Day for Philip
I well knew my friend's typical day, which for decades never lost its routine.
Philip is up at 5 a.m. and puts on one of two suits, a white shirt, and one of his
four neckties (each was a past Christmas present from a niece and or his sister in
Minnesota). His breakfast is a muffin—usually blueberry—and a cup of
decaffeinated instant coffee. Philip has an aversion to cooking his own
meals—it has something to do with a memory of his army chow and KP duty. He takes
many of his dinners at a McDonald's. A physician would tell him years later that his
meal regimen likely had contributed to his two heart attacks.
Before leaving for work, he gives a worried thought to the fragile health of
his octogenarian sister or the expected cost of a brake job for his 14-year-old Chevy
or, and most troublesome, the kind of person his soon-to be-hired new boss might be.
It perturbed Philip, he had told me when he was 76, not to know if he'd be up to the
challenge of again having to adjust to a possible quirk in a new boss's management
style.
Philip now descends two flights of stairs. He drives his car out of a small
parking lot across the street and, in ten minutes, arrives at his department store.
Because his car once didn't start and he had to take a taxi to work, Bruce always arrives at
the shopping center 90 minutes early and sits in the car until the employee entrance
opens.
It is a large and busy store, part of a national chain. Top management has
been continually cutting back hours for full-time employees or firing them upon the
slightest infraction of company rules and then replacing these people with part-time
employees who, of course, work without medical benefits and whose hours are
changed mercurially from week to week to conform to cash flow demands. Loyal,
hardworking veteran employees like Philip are shown no favoritism, Philip explained
after I had prodded him to divulge a few company secrets.
A year ago, a new manager lost patience with Philip for not meeting a
daily quota of company credit card applications. Philip was downgraded.
"I just couldn't pressure people to sign up for a credit card when I sensed
they really didn't want it, Philip told me. The downgrade stung Philip,
but he did not protest and continued to give his best.
The change in his job description now had him unwrapping and carting sofas
and armchairs and stocking shelves. All this physical work was obviously meant to
force Philip to quit. It was taking its toll on Philip, now walking slower.
Philip after work heads for dinner, sometimes to his favorite shopping center
café for a dinner of pasta ( his favorite ) or one of those hot pork sandwiches on
white bread smothered with canned gravy and a side of instant mashed potatoes .
Then it's home to his apartment—which no one has ever seen, except his sister when
she helped him move in and showed him how the hideaway bed worked. For several
months he has entered by the building's backdoor to avoid encountering a demented
tenant who, for no apparent reason, hurls insults at Philip when their paths cross, like :
"Come on, Shorty, look alive!".
Once home, Philip does not leave his apartment until morning. Before going
to bed, he'll watch a Public Television documentary or a library-borrowed movie
from the 1940s. On any of his two days off, Phillip might spend a few hours
reading the Wall Street Journal at the library or taking the train (once a month ) to
the Chicago Loop to have a corn beef-on-rye sandwich at a German restaurant, one
of the very few luxuries he allows himself. Twice, maybe three times a year, he'll
have lunch with an aging tailor friend. Philip's wardrobe for these off days consists
of no more than two plaid shirts (washed but never ironed ) and one pair of aged,
slightly baggy pants with cuffs rolled up about three inches.
More Coffee, Nostalgia, and Shoplifters
When Philip's sister died, he made a two-day trip to Minnesota for the
services. I telephoned him the day of his return: "Let's meet at meet at Caribou for coffee, " I
suggested. " It was his favorite place; with its fireplace and knotty pine walls, it reminded
him of that Wisconsin resort where Philip and family would often vacation and fish. Central in his
memory was that of the convivial resort owner of Chippewa descent.
As usual, Philip insisted I choose where to sit. I reminded him that it was his
turn to pray. His prayer was brief, sincerely expressing gratitude for life itself and
asking blessings for my wife. He ended it with " we pray in His name ." I wondered
why he had made no reference to his sister, whose death I knew had deeply saddened
him. "I wasn't even warned!" he had once told me tearfully.
Our meal conversation eventually turned to old Hollywood movies and
actors like his favorite, Cary Grant. We talked about how the prices of new cars had
soared since the 50s, and finally, about the very rich and famous and how they
unwisely or wisely spend their money—and how they died. This last topic prompted
Philip to relate the time he found $l4,000 at work. It was in a pouch on the floor,
dropped accidentally by a cashier rushing to the security office. "It was anyone who
wanted it," Philip said and frowned, still irritated at the cashier's clumsiness. "No
one was in sight at the time, and the cashier would never recall where she had dropped
it. When I turned it in to security, they grabbed the pouch from me and gave me a
queer look." I think they might have said 'thank you' ."
Our conversation continued...Philip always has a complaint about the boldness
of shoplifters. This time it was a thin woman who, before she was caught, had walked
out of a dressing room wearing two layers of stolen dresses concealed under her own
dress. And there were customers who switched their own shoes with those in a
shoe box. Philip, who once sold shoes in the store, found this disgusting. When the
topic of charity came up, My friend, laying aside a large chocolate cookie on our restaurant table, said
"when we at the store give change back to a customer , we suggest they consider dropping just a little
of it into this box here to help our veterans, Some ignore this and make the lamest excuses ." Philip
rattled off the excuses.
Philip leaned back and relaxed while we drank our coffee in silence. I became impatient with
his comfort in our silence, and so I probed, perhaps unkindly. "Anything ever upset you, Philip? I
mean, do you ever think about heaven or hell? "
He sensed the edge to my voice and replied , "Look, I don't know much about where I'm
going when I die. I'm just concerned about all the tragedy now in the
world." I sensed he said this with such a heavy heart that I was embarrassed for asking the question.
After another long pause, Philip again surprised me with his question: "Ever wonder why God allows
good people to suffer?" Likely ,he was thinking about the death of his sister .
"I really know," I answered, and added, " maybe for a greater good ? " I don't think either of us were
satisfied with that. I sipped more coffee,
A few days later, my wife and I had Philip over for dinner. He was totally
refreshed as only a night of deep, good sleep can do for a human . My wife
Mary Alice asked him how his new boss was treating him.
Flashing a smile that lingered several seconds, Phillip quickly replied: "Well,
her name is Doris, and she's maybe twenty-eight. A little assertive and doesn’t know how
to say no to her employees or 'would you mind doing this? ' But then she's under a lot of pressure to
turn things around in our department.." Bruce always find some good in anyone, no matter how they
treated him. Over dessert, he had a lot more to say about Doris.
"Listen to this now," he went on. "I come to work early one morning, set
things up in the stock room before I clock in. I didn't know there had been a
mistake in the shift schedule and that I wasn't suppose to work that day. My
new boss comes in, sees me, and says she is s really sorry for the mix-up and
gives me a big hug. Can you imagine. Then she says, "I'm going make it
up to you with five extra hours of work for you next week. "
I clapped. My wife, happy, smiled at Philip.
After dinner, we escorted Philip to the front porch. I watched him walk
into the night towards his parked car. "He's wearing that same old shirt, " I
murmured to my wife. "Be quiet." she told me.
Philip's moved slower than ever, his back now slightly hunched and
his arms dangling rather than swinging at his side. How ever do his kind
manage to survive? I thought. Yet, I admitted--though halfheartedly-- there was
something to envy about my friend.
Old Store Clerks Don't Retire; They Just Get Forced Out
Somewhere in the late 1990s, Philip's department store became more
aggressive in replacing full-time workers with part-time people (without
medical benefits ) and whose hours managers could now easily manipulate
solely for company advantage. In Philip's eyes, the employee turnover was
dizzying and shameful. Especially targeted were employees of Philip's
age—he now was 75—and who had years ago opted to take a small cash
payout instead of a pension. All pensions were soon eliminated. Bruce told me that "the employee
who complains too much finds his hours are drastically cut or they find some excuse to fire him. "
Philip, whose hours had been cut to under 20 per week, now had worked several years
years without a raise. When he told me that, I shouted: " What ?" .
His 45 years here as a shoe, then furniture salesman, had earned him a reputation
of unquestionable honesty and company loyalty. Yet, stupidly and
unethically, his company, with its often draconian rules, was doing its best to
discourage loyalty and work diligence among its 500-plus store employees.
Nevertheless, Philip remained steadfast to his code of conduct. When I asked him
why he just didn't quit, he said he couldn't afford to. But there was another, more
entrenched reason. I knew that Philip through the years had bonded with his work
environment and a predictable and work-satisfying workday. All this, along with
friendship with a handful of coworkers, had become his true home. He embraced it for
better or worse.
Near the end of 2011, Philip' s work hours were cut to five. One day a week he
climbed a tall inventory ladder to stock shoe boxes; it gave him back pain. On Jan
26, 2012 Philip quit. What really pushed him over the edge, I believe, was the
depression he had felt for two days after his young, ambitious, and most likely
insecure female boss had inexplicably shouted at him. It had occurred at least twice,
each time at the end of the day when Philip, as a voluntary gesture, began working
beyond his quitting time to tidy up some inventory. He told me "She'd start yelling at me: What
are you hanging around here for?! …All I could do, Bob, was stand there and look at
her. "
"What are you going to do now?" I asked.
" I don't know. For now, I'm just enjoying being free of her."
Philip's boss was one of those humans—so I conjectured—who are repelled
by what they perceive as inexcusable weaknesses in people. With some alarm they
sense—but find it impossible to admit—that this weakness is coiled in themselves.
The mere thought of ever becoming in the least like a Philip—despite any virtue that
this weakness might give them —threatens to shatter their self-esteem.
The more I reflected on what Philip continued to tell me, the better I
understood my own frailties and saw why some "strong" individuals dread and even
hate being in the company of people like Philip. . I think of think of Holy Scripture's words about
the many who hated Jesus because His goodness was a daily reminder of their badness.
A week or two later, the head store manager and a few co-workers arranged a
retirement occasion for Philip in the cafeteria. There was no wrist watch or severance
pay. But there were from Philip's friends warm goodbyes . There also was coffee and two strawberry cakes.
It Couldn't Get Any Worse
When Philip told me he no longer could afford his $650 a month apartment
rent, his continual tribulation finally exasperated me.
"But Philip, you did see this day coming, didn't you?! And you didn't save for it?! Or
look for a different job years ago?! "
Philip looked at me with that calm and collected expression which again
signaled I was about to learn something.
" There was no money to save," he simply said. "And I told you before , I tried
looking for work years ago, but I guess I was too old even then."
With the help of a niece who lived in Chicago, Philip moved into a
nearby, low-cost retirement home. His Social Security check was surrendered each
month to the home; he was allowed to keep $100 of it. His room was very small; it
had a bed, microwave and a small television set. Several old and faded black and
white family photos were tacked on the wall or in frames on a small desk. A black
and white framed etching of Jesus was on a bedside table.
One morning, a few months after Philip had moved into the home, he was walking
out to his 16-year-old Chevy when he began losing breath. The home manager called a
doctor, and he was admitted to ICU at Northwest Community hospital. His heart,
which had several years ago required an angioplasty, was now pumping blood with
only 15 percent efficiency. Doctors implanted a pacemaker and a defibrillator into Bruce.
Philip recovered, and within a few weeks we were again meeting for coffee.
Heeding his doctor's advice, Philip refused to ever drive again. For five months his
car remained with four flat tires in the parking lot, until a mechanic gave him $500
for it. Other than the death of his parents and sister, I don't believe my friend was ever
more saddened as upon surrender of his car , his last vestige of independence, he
claimed.
For two weeks Philip declined to see me. "I've got a cough, and I don't want
to give it to you." he told me on the phone. It was a typical and selfless consideration of his. Philip did
his best not to get too close to people with whom he took his meals. One lady whom he sat next to,
however, had undetected pneumonia . Philip contacted it and was again back in the
hospital. There doctors discovered he had an abdominal hernia , but they could not
operate because of his past heart implants. Instead, Philip was put on a diet of
pureed food. He hated all of it.
I visited Philip weekly at his rehab center, where he lost so much weight that
his clothes took on a clownish appearance. At first he was in a wheelchair, then
shuffled along the hallways on a walker. His nights were practically sleepless because
his partially demented roommate would wake up screaming during the night. " For
heaven's sake," I told Philip, "try at least to talk to your roommate about it, talk to the
staff.." Philip said he did not want to cause any more discomfort to his roommate.
Nothing in his voice hinted he was or wanted to be a martyr.. Were I to
remonstrate with him for what I thought was excessive charity, I knew his reasons
for it would be embarrassingly superior to my advice that he assert himself. He was
too much of some kind of earth-bound angel to hold stock in the cliché the squeaky wheel gets oiled .
Philip slid into a deep depression; his face became grayish, he walked slower,
talked less and less, and often took a full minute or longer to make a reply during our
conversations. When he did, it was with just a few words. Sometimes there was no
reply; he'd just stare at me, wide-eyed until I felt he had lost all human perception.
Other times he reminded me of the metaphor the prophet Isaiah used to describe
Jesus: Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter…so Philip did not open his mouth.
When Philip swallowed his first antidepressant, his legs froze on him the next
morning. He wasn't given any more antidepressants until months later, when he was
moved back to his retirement home and able to eat regular meals. Though he had
daily longed for this return, Philip remained depressed. We prayed together each
time I visited him, and for a few moments Philip would come alive, but soon
relapsed.
During one visit, I wanted so badly to see my coffee buddy become a person
again that I broke the few rules I knew about caring for a clinically depressed
person. I confronted Philip about his depression, told him to fight it, face it
aggressively as he did during those eight weeks of his Army basic training. I lectured,
preached, pleaded. I wanted him angry, sad—anything to make him come alive. feel. Finally, I Have
you, Philip, have you gone to your knees and begged God to heal you? Have you? Of course he had,
he said.
"All I want is some friendly conversation" . We gave it to each other, I looked at my friend and said
with a full heart, "Philip, I miss our friendship."
"I understand," he said ,then added, "You know, Bob, people have to work out
their illnesses in their own way. "
I telephoned him a week later, and we went to a Panera Bread Café. Philip had a cup of tea. I
asked him what he wanted most in life, hoping it was something I could help with.
"I'd like to get my personality back. ". He was audible and said little more.
When leaving the retirement home later, I reminded one of the attendants that
my friend's fingernails were horribly long and if she would please cut them. When I spoke to his niece
the next day, she said Philip's physician had recently given a negative prognosis about Philip; he would not live much longer. I asked her to invite Philip to my upcoming birthday party. Philip
told he it was too soon for that. He sent me a greeting card, and I smiled as I opened
it, but then swallowed hard when I saw his signature. It was tiny, only the P in his
name was legible; all the letters were tightly squeezed together . It was the
penmanship so characteristic of someone with Parkinson's disease.
***
I shall visit my friend in Heaven. I know his eulogy written said by Saint Francis de Sales, a
great figure of the 17th Century rebirth of religious mystical life , was meant for humans like Philip . .
I am a poor, frightened little creature, the baby of the family,
timid and shy by nature and completely lacking in self-
confidence; and that is why I should like people to let me
live unnoticed and all on my own according to my
inclination, because I have to make such enormous efforts
about shyness and my excessive fears….I have been
slighted and I rejoice: that is what the Apostles did. So to
live according to the spirit is to do what faith, hope and
charity teach us to do, whether in things temporal or things
spiritual….So, rest in the arms of God's mercy and fatherly
goodness.
THE END
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at RRSCHWARZ777@GMAIL.com
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Robert R. Schwarz
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