On last week I attended the funeral of a guy that used to work near me. He was a middle-aged white guy (with the coolest Fu Manchu) who would occasionally come by the office for, what I assume now, was company. I didn’t talk to him much, but from what I heard around the office he was an interesting person, to say the least. He was single and had no children. He lived with his mom up until her death a couple of years ago. A couple of weeks ago I heard that he’d not been at work for a couple of days…and this guy never misses work! A guy I work with, who talked to him regularly, took the liberty of calling around to hospitals and the man’s home but to no avail. The next day he was informed that the police went to the guy’s home, kicked in the door, and found the his body decomposing. Police also found a bottle of pills, alcohol, and a gun. They concluded that he’d overdosed on pills and died by suicide on Easter.
Some of us from the office went to his funeral on last Friday. His family decided to do an grave side service, the first for me. They obviously were still in the midst of shock and grief from the suicide gauging from a comment his brother made; “As soon as we bury him we’re going to piss on his grave!” There was an overcast that day and it started to mist a little. People were asked to come up and say something they remember about the deceased. Many came up and told stories of humor and some of frustration, but one man came up and said something that “punched me in a gut.” He was the neighbor of the deceased and spoke of him contrary to many others. He talked about how the deceased had a good heart and how he would go out of his way to help others. Then the neighbor mentioned that he was a Christian and that, though, he knew the deceased he never really reached out to him. He stated that as a Christian he’d shown love to those in the church but rarely to his neighbors, especially one needing it the most. He, as many others there at the grave side (including myself), felt if he would have just showed this guy love maybe he’d still be around.
Whether that’s true or not I don’t know but what I do know is that I’ve done a crappy job of reaching out to others, especially those who are not like me. I have an unintentional habit of looking down on people who are not like me…you know, the ones who work at Wal-mart, the ones who don’t speak “proper English”, the ones who are classified as low income. The weird part is that I don’t try to. I usually try to talk to everyone and make them feel comfortable around me, but I’ve learned that the real me comes out when “I’m not trying”. My natural reaction and tendencies are revealed when I’m not comfortable. I hope that this changes about me (and I believe that it is), and though I don’t know WHY I’m like this I know it’s not right. More importantly it’s not Christ-like which is something I usually strive to be.
As I walked away from the grave side, staring at the casket of this guy I use to see often, I wonder if my own arrogance helped kill him. If my refusal to speak, smile, or even engage in conversation pushed this guy to his last resort…suicide. I don’t know that for sure, but what I do know is that I can start today making sure that I embrace and love people where they are, not where I think they should be. That’s real love!
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