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August 2005
Someone told me this story. I noticed a man who always stood at the window of an old building, which is located across the street from the lot where I parked my car. Morning after morning this same man, whom I would judge to have been in his middle forties, appeared at the same open window as I drove past.
He was always there when I went home at the end of the day as well. I began to wave or smile to the man in the window, and he would return my greeting with a similar wave. Though it seems unlikely, we developed a friendship in the absence of any personal knowledge of one another, without a single conversation between us.
My curiosity finally compelled me to get better acquainted with the man behind the smile. One noontime I walked from my office to the building where my congenial friend lived and climbed a dark stairway to the fourth floor. I knocked on the door, and it was opened by "the man in the window." He introduced himself as Tommy and invited me to come into his two-room apartment. During the next hour he told me his story.
He had been a successful executive until devastated by a massive heart problem about six years earlier. His heart ailments were compounded by emphysema and other physical disorders, which prevented his engaging in any form of work. I also noticed that his right arm was deformed, being much smaller than his left. Tommy, I learned, was rarely able to leave that tiny apartment. He was not married and seemed to have no relatives or close friends. His situation was not unlike being sentenced to almost solitary confinement in a two-room cell.
The beautiful part of Tommy's story is how he chose to cope with his personal tragedy. He had every reason in the world to be depressed and unhappy, but he showed confidence and optimism. He had decided that he would make friends with as many people as possible among those driving to and from their work, and that consisted of his entire social life.
I said, "Tommy, what can I do for you? Do you need anything? Can I help you in any way?" He said, "Thank you, sir, and I appreciate your offer. But I'm doing all right. I really don't need anything."
There was not one ounce of self-pity apparent anywhere in our conversation, and he steadfastly refused to let me treat him as an invalid. His only acknowledgment that
life was difficult came in response to my question, "Do you ever become discouraged
with your situation here?"
Tommy replied, "Well, in the morning when everyone is coming to work, I enjoy greeting the people at the start of a new day. But when they're heading on their way home at night and I'm saying goodbye, I sometimes feel a little blue." That was the only negative statement I ever heard him utter. Tommy had obviously made up his mind to accept life as it was.
For something more than fifteen years, Tommy stood his watch above the noise and traffic of the street, and we remained good friends. I stopped my car beneath his window on a January day to greet him after I had been gone for a brief Christmas vacation. Without thinking, I asked him, "Did you have a good holiday?”
Tommy replied, "It was great." I learned later that he had spent the entire Christmas season in the solitude of that room, watching the harassed shoppers and commuters below him.
A few weeks later, Tommy failed to appear at his usual place at the window. The second morning he was absent again, and both the shades were drawn. I learned from the parking lot attendant that Tommy had collapsed and died during the previous weekend. My friend was gone. His funeral had already been held, though I doubt if anyone attended it. Now as I drive past the apartment building each morning, I can hear Tommy saying the last words he ever spoke to me, "It was great."
How did this true story speak to you? The next time you see me at church, stop me and let me know, or if you prefer, my address is bobweiss@pacbell.net.
Blessings,
Bob Weiss
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