I attended a memorial service today for a man I worked with for about a year. I thought I knew him fairly well. Day in and day out, he and I worked in the same office. His reputation preceded him - not for his personality, brilliance or looks necessarily, but because he pastored the Assembly of God church in our city. I'd attended "Assemblies" on occasion through my life, and I always viewed the members as a little "off-putting". They struck me as being just the opposite of the pious, reverent, never-turn-your-back-to-the-alter Catholic I was raised to be. I also had it on good authority that he spent as much time sheparding the customers who walked in as he did helping them find gainful employment. Being a Christian myself, I admired this trait, and at the same time secretly admonished him for not doing what he was being paid to do. "An honest day's work for an honest day's pay" was something I was taught early in life.
I never spoke too much with Mike, other than the perfunctory "good morning" or "have a good night", and the longer I worked with him, the more perplexing he became to me. He seemed to have the strangest compulsions, such as making sure there was no ice on the sidewalks in morning and making sure HE was the one who locked all the doors before leaving at night. He took it upon himself to make certain the state car was always washed, serviced and sporting adequate tires, depending on the time of year. If he didn't already have someone with him, he was always rushing up to the counter to grab a poor customer and usher them to his desk, whether they needed the services he provided or not! On more than one occasion, I witnessed him holding a counseling session and a Bible study, right there in his cubicle! He also had a way of "helping" me by explaining how to operate my telephone or the copier machine, or the fax, for heaven's sake! He must have thought I was some kind of idiot, or was he trying to show me that he was the most wonderful, knowledgeable person in the office? I decided he was simply obnoxious.
Mike also kept an array of weird objects littered around his cubicle; Pine cones, stones and all manner of sea shells. And LOTS of pictures of his grandkids! The pine cone was my "favorite". It was HUGE, and he displayed it with pride by fashioning a sort of stand for it out of cardboard. As I was walking by his desk one day, I casually asked him where he got such a big pine cone. "The pine cone? You like that pine cone? Want to know where I got that?" He then launched into a presentation about how it came from a specific tree in California, that it featured particularly sharp points on the edges ("Feel those....Come on and just feel one!"), and that if it fell from its tree and hit a person on the head, it would probably kill them. Before I could escape, he picked up the conch shell and insisted that I hold it to my ear to hear the ocean in it! Before I knew it, he held another shell called a nautilus, saying "I'll bet you've never seen one of these before, have you? Do you know what a nautilus is?" Good Lord, I was just trying to be nice!! Of COURSE I knew what a nautilus was! I used to work in a Nautilus Fitness Center, for heaven's sake! "YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY MAN WHO KNOWS ANYTHING, MIKE!", I screamed at him from inside my head. From that day forward, I carefully planned my trips around the office to avoid passing his cubicle.
On a few occasions, my kids came to town for a visit and stopped by the office to meet my co-workers. I was reluctant to introduce them to Mike, because I knew they would not be allowed to leave until they'd each received one of his special cubicle tours, whether they wanted one or not!
I had acquired a chronic cough. It kept me up all night and I grew extremely tired. It was getting progressively worse and I was getting sicker. I was frequently too sick to work. The doctors didn't seem to have any clue about what was causing it or how to stop it. Mike marched over to me one morning and loudly proclaimed that if I wanted him to pray over me to just let him know and he would certainly do it. He didn't care if it WAS a government office, he said. "You just let me know".
I was not the only one who was agitated by Mike, and as the months past, the other girls in the office grew more and more irritated with him. "Did you see what he did with this file? I've told him a dozen times how to complete this procedure and he STILL doesn't know how to do it!" "Where is Mike? He left for lunch nearly 2 hours ago! I guess he just thinks he can come and go whenever he feels like it!" "Man!! Just because he was the manager of an office in Oregon, he thinks he's the boss around here, too! Well, he's not going to tell ME what to do!" The comments finally worked their way up to the ears of management, and Mike was relegated to receptionist duties only. What a come-down for such a worldly man!
Time passed, and one day I realized that Mike was becoming more subdued than he'd ever been in the past. Oh, he still held his "one-on-ones" with the customers and spent huge amounts of time on the phone, but he seemed to distance himself a bit from the rest of us in the office for whatever reason. He was the only guy in the office...Was it possible that he'd finally gotten his fill of listening to female office banter? Often times I would glance over and see him sitting at his desk with his head in his hands. "NOW what is he doing?" I thought. "Sleeping on the job??"
My cough finally got so bad that I was forced to take an extended leave of absence. During this time, I finally found a doctor who helped relieve my cough (along with a host of other things), and I was able to return to work on October 6th. On my first morning back, I noticed that Mike was not in the office. "Where is Mike? On another vacation?" I quipped. My other two co-workers rushed to my desk with concerned looks on their faces. "Oh, didn't you hear what happened? Mike is sick! Last Friday, he couldn't do a thing! He was trying to sign people up for the workshop and just look at what he did!" They thrust a clip board toward me and I looked down upon it. There, written on the sheet were lines of unintelligible marks and scratches. My heart fell to the pit of my stomach. "My God", I said, "Did he have a stroke?" "We don't know what happened. It was really awful! He came to me 3 times, asking for the name of the copier."
"He came to my desk and told me that he wanted to send me an email...But he just couldn't figure out how to do it!" "He told me that he couldn't see. I think he's having a reaction to the new medicine his doctor gave him." "I think he's going to the doctor to have some tests". That day was a solemn one for all of us in the office. What had happened to Mike? Was that why he had acted the way he did? What's going to happen? How about his poor wife?
A few days later, Mike and his wife came into the office. Mike was silent as he went to his cubicle, appearing busy with this, that and the other. Linda cornered his wife Janet to see what they'd found out. The answer was devastating. Mike had been diagnosed with tumors in his brain. They didn't know yet whether it was cancer. The doctors were going to do a biopsy the next day. As Mike aimlessly wandered the office, he happened to look up and see me. "HI!", he said with a big grin. "I am so glad to see you again! Were you able to get the help you needed?" "Yes Mike," I said, "I'm feeling very much better. How are you?" "Well," he said, "I'm having a few problems at the moment, but I'll be fine. I'm just glad you're feeling better!" With that, he found his wife again and prepared to leave. We all told him goodbye, not to worry about things here, and to hurry up and get better. "Oh, I'm just having a little procedure. I'll be back in a week".
Mike never returned to the office. He was diagnosed with a very aggressive form of cancer in his brain. The doctor gave him 3 to 6 months to live. All of us bore a load of guilt and remorse for the way we had treated him and for things we had said. "If I had only known.....I wouldn't have been so hard on him!"
The biopsy disabled him considerably, and Mike was moved to a nursing home for care. One day after work, the girls and I got into our cars and convoyed together to the nursing home to see him. Two at a time, we stoically marched into his room for a visit. It was awkward for all of us, I think, but particularly awkward for me. I knew Mike instinctively knew what I thought of him. I carried the office card and gift, and, acting like it was a birthday present, placed it on the bed beside him. "Put it on the....with....." he stammered with a smile, and I asked him if I could open it for him. He grinned and nodded, and I pulled out a picture he'd had at work that he was particularly fond of. It was a picture of his family, and we'd had it framed so he could enjoy it there in his new place of residence. He nodded and smiled his appreciation to us. It was obviously a struggle for him to talk, so we yammered on about how we missed him in the office, about how many people had come in to ask about him, and so on. Mike grinned and nodded some more. I noticed a definite calm about him, and I knew that he was at peace with his situation. He spoke volumes through his eyes as he looked at us, as if to say, "It's all right, don't feel bad. I understand. Thank you for coming to see me." My visiting partner and I didn't stay long. We used the excuse that others were waiting to visit. But I distinctly felt God's presence in his room that day, and I left feeling very sorry and ashamed, yet forgiven. I couldn't bring myself to visit him again, though I told him that I would. He lived 2 more months after our visit.
At his memorial service today, all the questions I'd had about Mike were answered. Indeed, he was quite an accomplished man. A college graduate, he was a teacher at the local schools in our valley. He was truly a Bible scholar, and pastored 3 churches prior to coming here to lead our local Assembly of God. He loved working with children, helping people, teaching Sunday schools, leading Bible studies and loving the Lord. In addition to this and many other things, he was an accomplished poet, having written over 100 poems. His son read one of them during the service. It was an absolutely beautiful piece.
I realized that, in spite of my attitude, Mike managed to teach me an incredible number of things in our short time together. I didn't realize this until today, and I regret that I will never be able to thank him for it. I know that as we speak, he is rejoicing in the presence of the Lord, and that the Lord is responding, saying "Welcome, my good and faithful servant".
Mike, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I WAS such an idiot. I'm sorry I refused to accept your unique offer of friendship and fellowship. Most of all, I'm sorry for myself - for the missed opportunity to get to know you better. I promise you though that I won't forget your valuable lessons. I promise I will try to offer my hand in friendship and love to everyone I meet from this day forward. I'll remember that we are ALL God's children, and we should love one another as brothers and sisters, regardless of their little idiocyncracies. Finally Mike,I promise to do as you asked me - I'll try to walk with Jesus.
Thank you Mike. Goodbye for now, my friend.....
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