Tom

On Day 5 of suffering through Covid, I laid in bed with just enough brain wavelengths for a bittersweet memory. My thoughts had drifted 25 years back to my friend Tom. I met him when I needed a farrier to trim my horses’ hooves. He clipped and filed while listening to Bob Marley’s classic reggae hits wafting from his truck’s open windows. The music suited Tom’s mellow mystique. I never saw him in a hurry. He never spoke with a sharp tone. As we became friends, our conversations lengthened and I shared what I learned at church or from my readings about God. Maybe I spoke with passion, but more likely something in his heart wanted to hear more. Before long, he came to church to hear for himself. He became a regular attender and from where I sat with my friend Ani, sometimes I saw him in the 4th pew.

Once he could refer to what we both had heard instead of taking my word for it, our conversations deepened. I wanted him to seek God by himself and for his faith to be his own. He started to carry a Bible in his truck and when we talked, I heard a growing love for God.

We lost contact after we both moved from Modesto, CA. When my life finally slowed enough to reconnect, I learned of his early death to cancer. Now he’s enjoying God’s glory and the new heavens and earth described in the Bible. Thinking about it makes enduring Covid not quite so miserable.

One Love by Bob Marley