Blog
When people around you realize they aren’t special, it was you that was special.
Before we dive into the story, I should set the stage first. I went to the Marine Corps from the modest origins of most enlisted: the muddy, grassy patch that holds up the socio-economic ladder. It was 2002, right after the war had begun, and the Hollywood horror film was in progress. Imagine this: a young kid with few options, strapped into his very first plane ride ever, sitting next to the wing completely unaware that it is normal for wings on a plane to move, and they moved a lot. As for the destination, who knows? You get the picture.
Now, fast forward a bit to a group of Marines heading home for some liberty (that’s just a fancy word for granted time-off). My best friend happened to also be from Miami and his parents had some condo on the beach; I was looking forward to hanging out with my friend, but I was puzzled by that. I knew where most of my Marine friends came from, so this was a mystery to me. Also, I never really knew anyone that could rinse off beach sand at home without first turning the floor of their car into a gritty sandpaper mess during the drive there. This was going to be interesting.
I arrived. Every building elevator I rode in my life opened to a hall way full of doors, so as the elevator opened, I was immediately thinking I got off on the wrong floor. The place was massive, the entire face of the building, with a continuous glass wall showing a wrap-around balcony overlooking the beach. The floors were marble, and there were antiques, paintings, statutes, and other decorations so fancy that—being notorious as a bull in a China shop—I was frozen stiff to not knock something over that I knew I couldn’t afford to replace. As his father approached me, I felt very out of place and my English became amazingly proper. He was short and very fat, maybe a size 46 waist, wearing a warm smile and unassuming clothing. He saw my nervousness and immediately made me feel as if I was one of his sons, giving me everything he had to offer. I thought I was special to him because of my relationship to his son because he was always like that with me, but it took me almost 2 decades to realize I was wrong.
In recent years he had some serious health complications and his health was declining rapidly. His good days would be what a healthy person may call a 3 out of 10 and his bad days were a negative 10. No matter what, although he could barely get words out, when I would go see him, he would crack a joke under his breath to make me comfortable, and his wife eye-roll. Recently though, he had been in the hospital for two weeks and was barely conscious. When I saw him and he said his last words to me: “I love you” and asked for a kiss. Shortly, he was moved to ICU and kept getting worse. There was nothing more to be done medically and he was in extreme pain. It would be soon that we waited at the hospital for my best friend’s older brother to fly in, and all the medications except the morphine were turned off. He died the next morning.
I showed up at the service on Saturday and people had flown in from everywhere to attend. There weren’t enough chairs in the church so most people were standing, and even that was challenging. The people standing were spilling out into the entrance and exits. I barely knew 8 people there and I thought to myself that anyone looking from the outside would easily assume this was just some affluent man who knew a lot of people, but that perhaps many there felt obligated to be there due to political or business connections and had no real connection to him. However, as you talked to people, they were sharing incredible stories that mirrored your own experiences with him. One story was from a relative that drove 4 hours to put up a sign at a property that was being built, but he left the shovel and the nearest Home Depot was over an hour away. The construction crew was already leaving for the day and no one was itching to stay behind after a full day of work and help him as an act of charity. One of them saw the name on the sign, and stopped and asked him how he knew the name on the sign; he told him. The guys said that although he may not be remembered by the old man, he sure remembered him. He called his crew friends over to help put in the massive sign. He had worked for him on the crew of a previous project long ago. This was the impact he had on absolutely everyone; story after story, person after person, big and little. Let me show you just how “little”. A mutual Marine friend of ours had just flown in from Texas to the funeral, and had an Uber drop him off on the wrong part of the cemetery. He had to beg a random employee to get a ride in a golf cart to the proper section on the other side of the property in time for service. The young girl that took him up in the golf cart said that although she had only met him for 5 minutes the year before, during another funeral, she remembered him as an extremely kind and funny man.
The three brothers took turns getting up to speak and there was much said, but there were two things that tore the heart out of my chest along with everyone else’s. My best friend went first and said, “To my dad it didn’t matter if you were the king, CEO, director, or the guy that swept the streets. He treated you as if you were his best friend.” This was true, and looking at the other cars parked outside I wasn’t the only one there that got to know him from the grassy, muddy patch holding up the socio-economic ladder. Maybe only a handful of us, but we were there. The second was, “I know I’m supposed to talk about him, but if he were here, he wouldn’t want me to talk about him at all. He’d want me to thank all of you that came, the staff, and my mom.” Like everyone else present, I learned that day that I actually wasn’t special after all these years, he was.
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4
Now, fast forward a bit to a group of Marines heading home for some liberty (that’s just a fancy word for granted time-off). My best friend happened to also be from Miami and his parents had some condo on the beach; I was looking forward to hanging out with my friend, but I was puzzled by that. I knew where most of my Marine friends came from, so this was a mystery to me. Also, I never really knew anyone that could rinse off beach sand at home without first turning the floor of their car into a gritty sandpaper mess during the drive there. This was going to be interesting.
I arrived. Every building elevator I rode in my life opened to a hall way full of doors, so as the elevator opened, I was immediately thinking I got off on the wrong floor. The place was massive, the entire face of the building, with a continuous glass wall showing a wrap-around balcony overlooking the beach. The floors were marble, and there were antiques, paintings, statutes, and other decorations so fancy that—being notorious as a bull in a China shop—I was frozen stiff to not knock something over that I knew I couldn’t afford to replace. As his father approached me, I felt very out of place and my English became amazingly proper. He was short and very fat, maybe a size 46 waist, wearing a warm smile and unassuming clothing. He saw my nervousness and immediately made me feel as if I was one of his sons, giving me everything he had to offer. I thought I was special to him because of my relationship to his son because he was always like that with me, but it took me almost 2 decades to realize I was wrong.
In recent years he had some serious health complications and his health was declining rapidly. His good days would be what a healthy person may call a 3 out of 10 and his bad days were a negative 10. No matter what, although he could barely get words out, when I would go see him, he would crack a joke under his breath to make me comfortable, and his wife eye-roll. Recently though, he had been in the hospital for two weeks and was barely conscious. When I saw him and he said his last words to me: “I love you” and asked for a kiss. Shortly, he was moved to ICU and kept getting worse. There was nothing more to be done medically and he was in extreme pain. It would be soon that we waited at the hospital for my best friend’s older brother to fly in, and all the medications except the morphine were turned off. He died the next morning.
I showed up at the service on Saturday and people had flown in from everywhere to attend. There weren’t enough chairs in the church so most people were standing, and even that was challenging. The people standing were spilling out into the entrance and exits. I barely knew 8 people there and I thought to myself that anyone looking from the outside would easily assume this was just some affluent man who knew a lot of people, but that perhaps many there felt obligated to be there due to political or business connections and had no real connection to him. However, as you talked to people, they were sharing incredible stories that mirrored your own experiences with him. One story was from a relative that drove 4 hours to put up a sign at a property that was being built, but he left the shovel and the nearest Home Depot was over an hour away. The construction crew was already leaving for the day and no one was itching to stay behind after a full day of work and help him as an act of charity. One of them saw the name on the sign, and stopped and asked him how he knew the name on the sign; he told him. The guys said that although he may not be remembered by the old man, he sure remembered him. He called his crew friends over to help put in the massive sign. He had worked for him on the crew of a previous project long ago. This was the impact he had on absolutely everyone; story after story, person after person, big and little. Let me show you just how “little”. A mutual Marine friend of ours had just flown in from Texas to the funeral, and had an Uber drop him off on the wrong part of the cemetery. He had to beg a random employee to get a ride in a golf cart to the proper section on the other side of the property in time for service. The young girl that took him up in the golf cart said that although she had only met him for 5 minutes the year before, during another funeral, she remembered him as an extremely kind and funny man.
The three brothers took turns getting up to speak and there was much said, but there were two things that tore the heart out of my chest along with everyone else’s. My best friend went first and said, “To my dad it didn’t matter if you were the king, CEO, director, or the guy that swept the streets. He treated you as if you were his best friend.” This was true, and looking at the other cars parked outside I wasn’t the only one there that got to know him from the grassy, muddy patch holding up the socio-economic ladder. Maybe only a handful of us, but we were there. The second was, “I know I’m supposed to talk about him, but if he were here, he wouldn’t want me to talk about him at all. He’d want me to thank all of you that came, the staff, and my mom.” Like everyone else present, I learned that day that I actually wasn’t special after all these years, he was.
“Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4
