Everyday Hero #6

 September 19, 2022

Some heroes don’t look the part. And some heroes would be considered villains by others. Today’s is that kind of hero.

“Ron” grew up rough. His father was terribly abusive, and “Ron” bore the brunt of much of his violence. In his efforts to survive, he fought hard, he drank hard, and his family paid the price. He was married at least twice that I know of, and even as adults, most of his kids seemed always on the edge, or in the middle of trouble. He loved them, but didn’t know how to be a good father because his own father wasn’t able to teach him. I could tell stories, but that’s not what this is about.

I met Ron when he was putting the roof on our new church. Roofing—that’s what he did. He was rightfully proud of his work, but what stands out to me is not just the quality of his work, but of his heart. He would literally give you the shirt off his back. He hired some of the scruffiest young men I’ve ever seen on a job, and then had to constantly supervise them because they would inevitably screw things up if he left them for even a short time. He was constantly lending them money he sorely needed himself and which he rarely got back. He never had much of this world’s goods, but was content living out on that back country road.

Once, we needed a new roof on the house. It was two stories on the front, and 3 stories up on the back, and almost a 1:1 pitch. He gave me an estimate, and I told him I couldn’t afford to do the whole thing at once. He offered to carry the balance as a loan to me, which I declined. “I can’t have you taking the hit for the job,” I protested. His response? “God will take care of it.” 

The hard-living, chain-smoking, whiskey-guzzling roofer was preaching to the preacher. He did the whole job, scrambling all over the roof like a monkey, and just as he said, God took care of it.

At some point, he began coming to church, and became a good friend, sticking by me when others were walking out. I guess he had experienced enough of that himself, and understood. He joined our small discipleship group for awhile, but then came a life-altering event: His brother committed suicide. He had been stopped for DUI in Ohio, and knew with his past brushes with the law what it meant. “I”m not going back to jail,” he vowed before going home and putting a gun to his head.

Ron was shaken to the core. In the days, weeks, and months afterwards, when I would stop over to see him, he would often be drunk, weeping and proclaiming, “I don’t see how anyone could do that to himself.” 

“Ron,” I responded more than once, “You’re doing the same thing with that bottle, only you’re doing it slowly.” His grief, and his response to it, eventually cost him his marriage. 

Ron’s lifestyle was catching up to him; he needed open heart surgery. Years of smoking had taken their toll. I prayed with him before they carted him away. Surgery was “successful,” but he had a stroke on the operating table. His entire right side and his speech was affected. Months of physical therapy made no difference, and Ron has for years now, been trapped inside a body that allows him very limited mobility and no speech. And yet, every time I visit him, he is cheerful. I take him coffee and a donut, tell him the latest news in my life, and about twenty minutes later, he reaches out his good left hand and I know it’s time to pray. 

My prayer is always one of gratitude for this man, for his friendship, his faith when mine was weak, and for his genial and gentle spirit. I’ve never seen him morose, silently griping. He always has a smile, and brings one to my face, just by seeing him. Most people wouldn’t see him as a spiritual giant; after all, he spent most of his life on the other side of the tracks, but “Ron” is an Everyday Hero to me, and I am blessed and humbled to be his friend.