This article was written by a guest contributor, John Trompeter, the owner/operator of ComForCare of Wheaton, IL.
Most days in our office are very typical. However, one day, Emnet, one of our caregivers, burst in the door.
“I just got back from Chuck’s place,” she said, referring to one of our elderly clients. “He interviewed me,” she exclaimed. “He really cared about what I had to say and who I was.”
Chuck had turned the tables from being the recipient of care and concern to one who administered it. And our caregiver wasn’t the only one who enjoyed his generous spirit. Chuck knew the art of holding deep, long, inquisitive conversations.
And although he walked with a cane and had plenty of ailments of his own, Chuck was not a man who complained, but turned his attention to others.
This kind man even went so far as to take his caregivers and others out to dinner, even paying the tab. A devout Christian, Chuck had been an academic, a PhD who had climbed the administrative ladder, even to becoming the president of at least one Christian college.
When he passed, I was curious as to whether he had experienced an awakening at some time in his life, maybe one of those people who realized late in life that it was people who really mattered.
But no—at his recent wake, his grown children testified that Dad had always been the mellow, caring person from the start. The atmosphere at the funeral home was one of calm acceptance—that of a man who truly lived a life of character to the end.
A person of high rank with plenty of education might be boastful and even bothersome. But Chuck was one man who lived out the saying, “The greatest among you must be the servant of all.”
By John Trompeter Owner/Operator, ComForCare of Wheaton