The "Family" Business

As I wrote about before, my friend is in ICU in the hospital. He’s had a rather colorful life, a hard life, a life full of experiences that have contributed to his choices. We’ll call him John. John is one of the most talented construction workers you’ll ever meet. He’s worked for some of the largest construction companies in the world and some of the smallest. We worked with John day in and day out, but didn’t really ever “see” John. Until now…

We were sitting at work last Friday afternoon when no one had heard from John for a couple of days. It turns out John had been taken to the ER at a local hospital by ambulance that day. He was coughing up blood for most of the day, actually he had been coughing up blood for two months and never told anyone. This time, it was severe enough for him to think he needed help. That night a couple of us went to the ER to check on John. The doctor would be admitting him and begin trying to figure out where all the blood was coming from. John had throat cancer. Tomorrow he will have a tracheotomy and a biopsy on the mass in his throat. Tomorrow he will begin a journey that will alter the course of his life. 

As we sat with John in his room the night before surgery, the morphine had him rambling on and on about work and whatever seemed to pop into his head at the moment. But I wanted to hear more about John’s heart. I wanted to know more about John’s life. I wanted to hear it from the lips of a man that may never speak again and I wanted to be able to record the memories of a man that may never get to share them. So I asked him, “what is your most favorite memory from when you were a kid?” Without even blinking his mind quickly went to his favorite fishing hole growing up, in a creek where the water was so clear you could see the year of a coin if you through it in. He was transported back to the smells of that fishing hole, finding his own bait, wearing cutoff levis and no shirt, feeling the warmth of the sun baking his skin. He remembered picking strawberries for a 10 cents a quart so he could give the money to his friends parents for taking them out to fish. 

“When was the first time you fell in-love?” The memory came to his mind like it was yesterday. He was living in the Methodist Children’s Home at the age of 10. He was there for two years and met Sandy Fickly. Beautiful blond little girl. He said they were young, so there was “no kissing or holding hands or anything like that”. Just sweet innocent puppy love. His first kiss? Well that was at the age of 12 playing spin the bottle of course. He was hoping the bottle would point at the girl he had a crush on and not her friend, but he ended up kissing the friend. John said he was scared but figured out how to do it pretty good. 

“How did you meet Brian?” Brian is our boss/president of Garrison Contractors. John was homeless at the time and Brian was one of the youngest project managers working for Lyda. Brian was running point on a 14 story hotel in downtown San Antonio. John came up and asked at the construction trailer if they needed any help. Most people there didn’t want to give John the time of day, but Brian did. He asked John what he knew how to do and John told him. Brian told him to be there tomorrow morning and he’d have some work for him. That was 14 years ago. Brian saw something in John that John didn’t even see in himself. Over the course of that 14 years, Brian gave John a place to live, gave him a truck or two and most of all, gave him an identity. John has had the opportunity to be part of the Garrison family. We have all taken turns caring for John’s dogs, visiting John, and just being there for him. 

Talking with John he’s overwhelmed by the outpouring of community. He says he doesn’t understand and doesn’t feel “worthy”. At the end of the day, how do we get to be “worthy” of people caring? The truth is it’s who we are at Garrison, and it starts with Brian. His heart envelopes and cares for each of us and as a result we all get to take part in the “family business”. We are all so fortunate to work for such a visionary. Someone who doesn’t just see the bottom-line but sees each one of us as people and lives that matter too.