By Robert R. Schwarz
"Your weakness is perfected in your journey" ... Fr. Joji Thanugundla,
associate pastor St. James Parish , Arlington Heights, Illinois
"Do not compare yourself with others, who seem to skip along their life-paths with ease. Their journeys have been different from yours, and I have gifted them with abundant energy. I have gifted you with fragility, providing opportunities for your spirit to blossom in My Presence. Accept this gift as a sacred treasure; delicate, yet glowing with brilliant Light. Rather than struggling to disguise or deny your weakness, allow Me to bless you richly through it." ... Sarah Young (listening to Jesus speak to her heart), from her journal, Jesus Calling
Karl stood motionless for perhaps a half-hour watching the breeze-blown pond ripples gently come to shore. His face, deeply-lined prematurely for his 55 years, was serene, and his eyes seemed to be welcoming glints of sunlight reflecting from the ripples. At his side was a small black and white dog, its attention riveted on the three ducks bobbing for food among a patch of lilies. Except for the frayed, straw hat that harmonized with his black hair, Karl’s resale shop clothes were a disturbing mix of colors and ill-fitted sizes, more suited for a man much larger than five-foot-six Karl. Ironically, five years ago Karl was successfully selling men's clothing in an upscale department store in Milwaukee.
Looking at Karl's face that day, one couldn't escape the thought that standing there and gazing upon those ripples, that he was being healed of something beyond the grasp of any doctor. He was not homeless, though constantly close to it.
Karl at last broke silence by turning to me and saying softly, " Glad you're here, Bob."
I hadn't seen Karl for seven years, since we had worked together on a cable television talk show I moderated for our church. He had suddenly dropped out of sight without any forwarding addresses.
We got in my car and drove to his apartment, stopping on the way at the house of his friend Jill to return her dog, which Karl often walked through parks and forest preserves. I told Karl I wanted to know all that had occurred in his life.
"Are you and Jill—well, you know…?" I asked.
"Just friends. I sleep over sometimes when she gets lonely. Actually, I'm much more serious about Derrick, her dog," he added, laughing. "We’re great buddies. He lies on my chest when I watch TV."
Karl and Jill had met in Milwaukee while attending county-sponsored rehab meetings for alcoholics, addicts, an assortment of felons, and those, like Karl, without category.
Their relationship, as I was later to observe after a few visits to Jill's house, provided a much-needed shelter for the couple. She, despite her impulsive caustic remarks to Karl and her periods of depression, nevertheless had given Karl a cuddly dog to sooth him at critical moments and a spare bedroom when Karl needed a respite from his crazy-quilted life; and Karl , despite all of his socially unacceptable behavior, had offered her some companionship. The relationship, though, was often strained to its limit.
Upon entering his small two- room apartment, I was jolted. Never had I seen any habitat—human or animal—so disorganized. It was as if a wacky artist, looking for subjects to paint, had spent hours creating the most disparate piles possible of common household items. Clothing, soiled linen, open food boxes, hardware, magazines, ashtrays (at least four)—all lay before us like an intimidating moat daring to be crossed. The tragic oddity of the scene was that nothing had been purposely placed anywhere.
"Let me get a light," Karl said.
"Good idea," I replied, now doubting the prudence of my decision to renew our friendship. I excused myself and walked to the bathroom. The tub was half-filled with pots, pans, and an assortment of jars and Tupperware. It reminded me of a decadent German abstract expressionist paintings so popular in the 1920's and 30's.
But when I sat down on a chair Karl promptly cleared for me, I saw there was nothing decadent about Karl's take on life. The walls were covered with religious writings and icons: here and there a cross, depictions of Christ, Biblical verses and other spiritual maxims. Karl had obviously tacked them up the very moment he thought of it and then reached for a hammer and tape or the nearest pencil and paper. Though disturbing to the senses, I saw nothing irreverent or neurotic about it. Its totality said Karl was obviously a man of faith and hope.
But when I sat down on a chair Karl promptly cleared for me, I saw there was nothing decadent about Karl's take on life. The walls were covered with religious writings and icons: here and there a cross, depictions of Christ, Biblical verses and other spiritual maxims. Karl had obviously tacked them up the very moment he thought of it and then reached for a hammer and tape or the nearest pencil and paper. Though disturbing to the senses, I saw nothing irreverent or neurotic about it. Its totality said Karl was obviously a man of faith and hope.
Yet, I couldn't take my eyes from the walls. I knew I should say something--but what?
"I know it's a little messy," Karl said. "I've been here almost a year. The rent is really cheap."
"You really love the Lord, don't you, Karl?"
"My parents made sure I went to church every Sunday, and wherever I am I hunt down a church."
I became aware of Karl's peculiar speech pattern : It had a staccato beat as it bumped along, and he repeated phrases again and again, as if the thought which prompted the phrase faded so fast that Karl doubted if he had spoken the words. He seemed forced to go into trivial details for long moments in order to approach the point he wanted to make. And I don't think his attention span would allow even a flash of diversion. Often it was impossible to interrupt his talking unless I shouted, "Please stop!" It tested anyone's patience, if not his or her charity.
I said goodbye to Karl an hour later: "We'll have to have coffee sometime." (I didn't mean it.) At his apartment building complex came another shock. My car was gone. I had not seen the obscured, weather-beaten tow-away warning sign for non-residents. I returned to Karl's apartment. Seeing how upset I was at soon having to pay $125 to get my car back, Karl actually began to cry. We went to the super's office to plead my case, and Karl shed more tears in front of the super. No man in my life had ever shown to me such a tender heart. I got the car back within an hour. No fine. I told Karl—and meant it—that I would soon be calling him for coffee .
***
Two weeks later, we were having lunch at McDonald's. Half-way through his hamburger, Karl suddenly frowned, excused himself, and went to the men's room. Fifteen minutes later he returned. "I'm sorry," he said. " I got this diverticulitis thing and I had to vomit." He explained that he forgot to take his doctor's advice to drink carbonated water with his meal to prevent choking on food . Truth was he hadn't the money for the annual esophagus dilation that enabled him to swallow food.
I now thought it necessary to take some inventory of my friend's life situation. He tolerated my questions with modesty and some embarrassment Little did I sense that we were drifting into a relationship in which Karl would soon be openly referring to me as "Bob, my mentor."
At the end of our very long talk during which Karl went into detail about his maladies, I sat speechless, finding it astonishing, unbelievable that any human being could be that afflicted and still gaze meditatively at pond ripples and, as he was now, to relate his life so matter-of-factly.
* He's been a recovering alcoholic since age l7, when, he says, he became deeply depressed by the death of his 18-year-old, much loved brother killed in an auto accident. (His father was an alcoholic, often unemployable as his son was now.)
* He (and his shut-in sister) has major depression, as did his mother, who likely passed it on to Karl.
* A recent bicycle accident left him with (manageable) multiple compression fractures along his spine and a broken collar bone that will not completely heal. (once losing his driver's license because of an alcohol-related accident, Karl has not driven a car in decades and relies on his bicycle to get around.)
* Now and then the osteoporosis in several bones flares up, as does a hiatal hernia (a bulging of the stomach through the muscle that separates the chest from the diaphragm).
* Most embarrassing to Karl, he says, is his Tourette syndrome, an inherited nervous system disorder that causes his face to unexpectedly twitch violently.
* Then there is some asthma and a variety allergies, some of which keep him home-bound for several days in all seasons.
* Major anxiety, also inherited, causes Karl to grind his front teeth—they were now down to the gum line—while sleeping . The grinding noise at night is so disturbing to his sister and her children that she regretfully disallows Karl from ever sleeping over.
* Perhaps the most debilitating of his afflictions, one that has also marginalized Karl in society, is a crippling combination of attention deficit disorder (ADD) and a severe bipolar disorder.
Karl and I began seeing each other weekly, usually for coffee and occasionally for a drive to a nature center, where we would hike while Karl endlessly vented his passion for just about everything growing on the ground or visible in the sky. We also visited my brother, a disabled veteran then living in a nursing home. Karl's outgoing, cheerful nature was steadfast with my brother as it was with strangers; I never doubted the genuineness of his persona and never saw it overshadowed by a bipolar symptom or any of his many medications. When one day we were again at that favorite pond of his and he was being lulled into serenity by the sun-dappled ripples, I suddenly understood the severity of his ADD and manic-depressive disorder and why he kept returning to this pond; it was the glint of sunlight upon the rhythmic patterns of ripples ! They afforded Karl a precious moment to stay focused on something beautiful, to elude all those senseless distractions that hourly altered his mind and vision, all that kept him from becoming a friend to himself.
***
A year passed. Karl was frequently telephoning me, taking long moments to repeat phrases and to ramble on with trivia. The rambling and repetitions were the building block he needed to reach that which Karl really wanted to say. Sometimes my fortitude waned and I would at last loudly interrupt and make a summary conclusion for him. He didn't mind my brashness; the fact that someone—other than the young counselor he met at his weekly county-sponsored recovery group—was willing to actively listen to him was golden for Karl. My friend saw much of his world in jigsaw pieces which he was constantly having to make fit. Karl's anguish was not altogether dissimilar from that experienced by the schizophrenic who sees reality with frightening distortions.
On a few occasions I would exhort Karl to make sure that despite all his health issues, his simple, job-free life and frequent visits to Jill's house to watch television and walk her dog to the forest preserve was not a deceiving comfort zone in which he was a virtual prisoner and from which he had no intention of leaving. Hesitatingly I once asked him, "Karl, have you done everything to get healed from all you afflictions and are you sure you really want to be healthy again?" He assured me that nothing more could be done for him other than taking his meds, seeing his counselor, and going to church and Bible class.
Karl had been waiting two months for dentures; years of grinding his front teeth had also injured his lower jaw. For the required surgery and multiple dentist visits, Karl had had to negotiate a discounted time payment plan with the dentist. He missed a payment or two and each time had to plead his case to the dentist. (Karl and his sister had mutually agreed that she was to receive her brother's monthly Medicare check and deposit it, when she thought necessary, in Karl's bank account. "This was a precaution against a manic spending urge of mine," Karl once joked. He often used humor to be ruthlessly honest about himself.)
A week after Karl got his dentures, he took them out of his mouth and proudly waved them at me. That same day he and I were visiting my brother when my friend again showed a tender heart. He greeted several nursing home residents, including the demented, with typical, outgoing cheerfulness; upon my brother, Karl poured out humor and a prayer to conclude our visit. On the drive home, we stopped at a fast-food place, had lunch, and were down the road 12 miles when Karl shouted, "My teeth ! I lost them!"
I pulled over to calm Karl, now frantically searching his clothes and car seat. Believing Karl had left the dentures on his tray when he trashed it (his gums were still too tender to chew solid food), I telephoned the eatery and pleaded with the manager to promptly search all trash buckets there. I waited while the manager searched, and when he called back and said the dentures were not to be found, Karl openly wept.
"Let's go home, Karl ," I said . "You'll get another pair from Medicare."
"I can't !" Karl cried . "They will only pay for one pair!"
Karl became inconsolable.
We had been back on the road for ten minutes when Karl began patting his shirt pockets for the third time. "I got 'em , Bob !" A moment to celebrate.
***
If there was any warning or foreshadowing of the rock bottom to which Karl was about to descend, neither one of us saw it .
As customary, when I didn't hear from Karl in more than five days, I telephoned. He answered, voice subdued. "I had an accident on my bike again, Bob. I was rushing to make a doctor's appointment, put on the brakes They failed at the intersection. Dumb driver paid no attention to my bike. My brakes failed."
Karl had flown over the handle bars, breaking two ribs and aggravating both his old , spinal compression fracture and the partially un-mended collar bone he broke when his bicycle skidded out of control at an icy railroad crossing last winter. He was wearing a truss over his midsection when I picked him up a few days later and still in pain. "I was going 20 miles an hour. When I got to the doctor, he actually yelled at me , 'What, again ?!' I could have been paralyzed, you know, Bob."
Karl, however, had something to be cheerful about.
"I have new freedom. I love Jill, but she was too much. She's had another breakdown and she's staying with her sister now and so I'm free."
I exhorted Karl to use his new freedom to best advantage.
Karl moved a few miles away to a two-floor, rundown home, only to discover that the landlady and her adult son were cocaine addicts. On the Karl's third day there, the family dog bit him, and a week later, the police raided the home but did not find enough evidence for an arrest. "I welcomed them into my room but they just took one look and turned the other way." We both laughed heartedly, especially me as I imagined Karl with his bipolar effusion waving the police into a room that defied even them to make a thorough search.
Before that week was over, Karl had left me a voicemail about "something serious " that had occurred and would I please come over.
Karl met me at curbside. "She promised me that her son would never get drunk again." He related how the landlady's drunken son had invited him into his room to introduce Karl to his girlfriend, who was sitting on the bed. Karl, hugger that he was, placed a friendly and innocent arm around the girl. It ignited violence in her boyfriend , who charged at Karl and began choking him. "I was losing my breath," Karl said, and explained how he broke free and, an hour later, oh-so-unwisely returned to the room to apologize to the girl for his "inappropriate" behavior. (Karl was one of many humans who reflexively say "I'm sorry" at the sight or sound of anything even vaguely disturbing to them.) He had gingerly put one foot in the doorway when the girl opened it, then immediately slammed it with all her might on Karl's face. Now fearing for his life, Karl called police. When they and the paramedics arrived to treat his swollen face and bruised neck, a detective asked Karl if he wanted to press charges, Karl replied, "No, he needs rehab not jail." The detective who knew of the previous raid on the house, just shook his head in disbelief at Karl's show of mercy.
I insisted that Karl move.
" Where?"
"Any place— but move today !"
Karl bowed his head with an expression of hopelessness. "I saw a homeless person this morning… "He voice trailed off and I believe he was fearing it would only be a matter of days before tenants at another place would once more find his appearance, his behavioral quirks intolerable and, with their hostile stares, force him out to the street.
Together we prayed.
Again I lost touch with Karl, who hadn't returned my calls for two weeks. Though I believed in God's promise that He never burdens us with more than we can handle, I feared that Karl had run out of Christian fortitude. I asked: Had not the entire multi-fractured world he had endured year after year, putting hope, faith, and love to an extreme test each day— had it not fractured beyond human repair? I can only imagine the spiritual warfare in which Karl was being engaged day and night, standing fast against a murderous, ever -deceiving foe we identify as Satan.
***
Karl didn't take my advice to move. But God's grace apparently did move. There were no more incidents in Karl's house. Then, not much later, on July 10, 2011, Karl and I were having a pork steak dinner at a county fair outside Milwaukee. He had just spent a week as a volunteer helping handicapped adults at a church camp , working side by side with its chaplain. I had never seen him so naturally energized, eyes sparkling, speech confident. Here was a new man, full of hope.
As he told me of his five days of helping challenged adults with their camp activities, of participating in prayer groups and bonding with two camp counselors, I sensed my friend had been rescued from dangling an inch from rock bottom. He now obviously had a love affair with the camp people he helped. I reflected on the irony of how Karl had, due to a terribly wounded mind and body, lost his skills as a salesman but now had gained far more precious skills: those of communicating in the uncommon, self-giving language of love.
"You may have found your ministry in life," I told him with as much enthusiasm as Karl himself was exhibiting under our food tent crowded with fair-goers.
He smiled widely at my remark and began singing the refrain of a campfire song he had learned at a sing-along with the camp's 100 guest children: "I'd rather be a sheep..." People turned, and Karl nodded at them.
"Now, when I'm on the pity pot," he said as if sermonizing to the world, "I think about those challenged people and, wow, I look at their attitude and how much they're enjoying life ! It's brought me closer to Jesus and what His resurrection means for me."
I sheepishly averted my eyes from all the farm families sitting nearby, but couldn't resist teasing Karl. " But, are you still a sinner?"
"Absolutely."
"Did you ever consider it amazing that you're still alive ?"
"Most definitely. I never wanted to plan anything because I didn't think I would live this long. But now, I'm in a new chapter of life !"
"Okay, guy," I said. "What do you want scribbled on your tombstone?"
"I want it to say, 'At Least He Tried."
Maybe the Cistercian monk Dom Boylan proposed a more fitting epitaph with:
"Let us gladly glory in our infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in us."
THE END
© 2011 Robert R. Schwarz
