People

During the five decades I was privileged to be in business dealing with the public, I met many interesting individuals.  Today I’m writing about one of them, a man I will call ‘Mr. P,’ or ‘Owen’.

Mr. P came into my life in early Spring, 1979.  A banker friend called me to say he had given my name to one of his customers.  He informed me that ‘Mr. P’ had a rather ‘strong’ personality, so I would need patience to deal with him.  Mr. P had told the banker that if I was interested, I could call him.

The next day I phoned Mr. P and made the appointment.  His new manufacturing business was in temporary facilities in a rough part of town.  I opened the nondescript front door and saw a man behind a desk, on the telephone, waving me to come in, pointing toward a chair in front of an ornate, wooden desk.  The man’s swarthy complexion and large nose said he was probably of eastern Mediterranean heritage.  He appeared to be short and stocky, with heavy, dark grey hair, swept straight back, gold chains around his neck, and diamond rings on his fingers, gave him the look of a successful, business executive.  He was leaning back in a plush, executive chair, feet extended out with high-heeled, decorated cowboy boots resting on one corner of the desk.   Near the cowboy boots on the desk, lay a large, high-caliber, semi-automatic hand gun, coincidentally I’m sure, pointing straight at me.    

The phone call ended and he stood up to offer a hand shake.  Mr. P was barely five-foot tall, even in high-heeled boots, but the ‘strong’ personality I was expecting came through with force.  Getting straight to the point, he briefly told me about his plans, and what, if anything, he might want me to do. 

He led the way out to his manufacturing area where they made machined parts.  Walking out of his office, he picked up the handgun, explaining to me that he kept it loaded with shot shells to kill the rats roaming the building.  The more he talked, the less I liked this man: he was foul-mouthed and arrogant. 

Back in his office he tried to explain to me the kind of building he envisioned, its size and various aspects.  He said nothing was firm yet; and it would be a month or two before he was ready to begin working on a design, and I could get back to him later if I was interested.  Driving away, I thought of all the abhorrent adjectives I could attach to this self-centered, disgusting, human being – glad to know there would be no follow up.

Before I could finish the short trip to my office, I knew I had it all wrong.  Some unlovely adjectives could be used to describe my own attitude and reaction to him.  Suddenly I was a worthless, spineless weakling, a hollow Christian, with a loathsome attitude.  That night I repented, and the next day I found some pictures in a magazine that looked a little like something he had described.  I attached those pictures to a note saying “Is this anything like what you were describing?” and mailed them to him.  At least I felt a little better about myself.  In a few days he called and wanted me to come see him again. 

That call would begin a short, but powerful, experience for both of us.  For three months we worked together on getting his new building designed and drawn up for receiving construction bids.  By this time we’d grown to be good friends, and we developed a special relationship that I could not have foreseen at that first meeting.  But it became the kind of relationship every Christian would hope for.  We were into the design process on the new factory when he invited me to his home to talk about a design for a new deck along the back of his house.

Then one day Owen called me with shocking news: he was told by his doctor that he had a fast growing cancer in the lymph nodes, spreading rapidly.  It was incurable.  But as we talked from day to day, he was adamant with me that he’d “never” become what he called the ‘last minute Christian.’ 

“No sir,” Owen would repeatedly declare, “you’ll never see me having some great public conversion.  I’ll die the way I’ve lived, and if that’s not good enough then so be it.” 

Almost every day that he could talk, he’d call me with his progress, and generally give me that same line.  My response was always the same: “Owen, you know never say never.” 

Soon, he was in the hospital, and I was there to pray for him, and his wife, and they’d thank me for the prayers.  There would be faint signs that his rigid front was softening.  When he was discharged to his home, I continued my visits with him. 

One day he called me in a jubilant mood as he had good news: One of his long-time employees, a dedicated Christian, had come to pray with him, and that day Owen was ready to pray the sinner’s prayer.  That night he became the Christian he swore he would never be, now he wanted to tell everybody.  We spent many hours together, talking about heaven, and death.  He wondered if the Lord would heal him so now he could really be a witness.  He had his wife call in to television ministries and make donations.  Often, he wanted me to read the Bible to him, and he loved hearing poetry as I would read works like Thanatopsis and others.

One day, after I had finished reading for him, he seemed very weak.  The end came that night.  Owen left this earthly life for his new life in Heaven.  He died a very different man, physically and spiritually, than he was the day of our first meeting just eight months earlier.  I’ve been forever thankful for those few short months that I knew him.  As I left their home that afternoon, I told him ‘goodbye.’  He gave me a faint wave and I said I would see him again.  And I meant it.