A Jon Post
My dad read a book a few months back about excess and the American lifestyle. It stirred something in him and he made several personal commitments as a result, including giving away many of the excess clothes he owned.
My dad has worked in the corporate world for years and one of the more enjoyable parts of that job is that he plays a lot of golf and gets to collect a metric ton of golf shirts along the way. You know those really cool shiny ones with that “Sweat wicking technology”, or the ones that have some strange relationship with helium so they kinda weigh less than air, or (my personal favorites) the ones that are so in tuned with the game of golf they were hand woven by the 80-year-old blind Scottish widows of the great Scottish golfing gods of the peat and they are guaranteed to reduce your golf score by at least 3 strokes? Yeah, my dad collected a bunch of those different kinds of golf shirts along the way.
So he read this book and realized that he has a bunch of scottish-hand-woven-sweat-wicking-helium golf shirts and he doesn’t wear about 90% of them. So he called me up and asked me if I could give away any he might send me! Despite our general decision to not pass out gifts to everyone (we try to keep our relationships based on the time we have with people, not the free things we might hand out) I made an exception for my father and told him I could. I have many friends here, old and young, who show up at the hospital not imagining they will be spending the next 6-12 months in the hospital living with a mere one or two outfits.
A few boxes in the mail later and I happily showed up at the hospital with a backpack full of top-of-the-line men’s golf shirts. I handed them out to the men I knew there and explained they were from my father. They all expressed their immense gratitude to him and I passed along the word of thanks in a phone call.
I occasionally see one or two of my friends there wearing their shirt but it is rare. These are scottish-hand-woven-sweat-wicking-helium golf shirts, not to be worn on any regular old day!
When I gave Nelson his shirt, he smiled broadly and held it up and fingered the smooth texture gently. His quiet nature did not allow for expressive shows of gratitude, loud words, or big hugs. He just looked me squarely in the eyes and solemnly said “thank you” with a smile. He didn’t say it but the way he held it made me think it may be the nicest shirt he had.
I didn’t see him wear the shirt until yesterday.
Last week Nelson’s health deteriorated from smiling, walking, eating and talking to bed-ridden and barely able to breathe. I don’t know if a tumor metastasized or if there was something else but he quickly lost the ability to communicate beyond muffled moans and murmurs to indicate mostly yes’s or no’s. I’ve spent much of the last 8 days visits sitting by his side… praying for miracles and praying for mercy.
Yesterday I walked in and found him much the same; lying on his side, holding his head with his hands as if he could push the pain out with his trembling fingers, and waiting for his miracle. Most of the time a person is admitted here they will wear their standard issue hospital clothes; light blue scrub top and bottoms. Nelson is no exception and up until yesterday he was wearing the same hospital clothes he nearly always wore. But this visit, I noticed, peeking out from the top of his blanket, a black, sweat-wicking collar above a butter smooth, tan-colored golf shirt.
Nelson had somehow found the strength that morning to put on his best shirt. At first I didn’t catch the significance. I smiled and remembered the way his eyes never left the black raven embroidered onto the breast as I handed it to him a few weeks ago.
Then I realized that Nelson was wearing his best shirt even in his desperate sickness. With a sigh, a deep pain and a deep longing for what Nelson had already realized, I sat down next to his bed and began to pray. Nelson’s miracle is coming soon. I held Nelson’s hand and prayed that God would smile with Nelson as he would soon be entering the throne room of grace wearing his best shirt and walking with a straight leg and back. Despite my failure to communicate with him about preparing to meet the Creator Who Smiles, he had taken it upon himself to look his best for that face-to-face meeting.
Nelson’s miracle is coming soon.
I’ll miss my friend.
