A College Administrator and a House Painter Walk Into a Church

These two had almost nothing in common until they picked up their brushes together

If you had asked me when I was ten who my dad’s friends were, I would have said the families we hung out with at church and the people he worked with. He had a demanding job that went far beyond 9 to 5, but he always made time to help me with physics, trigonometry, and any other subject that included more numbers than letters. Those families seemed similar: average income, suburbanites who went to Bible study on Wednesdays, served as church leaders, and had wives who excelled at potlucks and child-rearing.

Fast forward to the man I know now. When he retired almost 20 years ago, I met a different side of him, one who was playfully witty and people-centered, with a much wider circle of friends. The unlikeliest of them was Paul.

When my parents introduced me to him at church, he seemed different: reserved and somewhat awkward, someone who stayed on the edges. But Paul and my dad became friends.

Paul was a professional painter, and he and my dad took on many of the painting projects around church, both being of service. I sometimes wondered what they talked about besides the Dodgers, as they spent hours together with blue tape and Wooster brushes, rolling new life into those walls.

My dad, a former Vice President for Administration and Finance for a small Christian college, knew hard, physical work from a childhood of meager means as the son of a diesel truck mechanic. Still, he was more commonly seen in a suit with his laptop and complex Excel spreadsheets than alongside men in Hawaiian shirts and tattered shorts.

Paul’s life had been marked by a decades-long struggle with alcohol and drugs, which led to very hard times: relapse after relapse and several stints in jail. On paper, they had almost nothing in common.

But somehow, in their shared love of Jesus, a friendship grew between them, one I can only describe as endearing.

Last May, in his 18th year of sobriety, Paul arrived at church early to join my dad in putting things in order, as was their habit. When Paul had trouble speaking, my dad took him to the ER because he suspected a stroke. Instead, the tests revealed two inoperable brain tumors.

As soon as Paul was hospitalized, he asked my dad to take charge of his decisions. My dad talked with the doctors and fielded visitors, since he was the closest person Paul had. When Paul moved to hospice, my dad became a fixture there, too. As the executor of Paul’s will, my dad treated that responsibility with such care, as if Paul were a beloved relative.

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In preparing for the celebration of life, he went looking for the people who had known Paul at other stages of his life: the friends from high school he’d kept for more than sixty years, the people from his stint in Hawaii, when he worked construction by day and camped on the beach at night, and the family he’d gathered along the way.

In his eighties, my dad came to know a whole cast of people he never would have met otherwise, all because he wanted to understand and represent his friend more fully and honestly.

He wrote a beautiful obituary and eulogy that honored Paul’s generosity and kindness. It didn’t shy away from the story of struggle and then relief that Paul told about his life, the one that describes the darkness and then the light.

In Paul’s words:

“I was constantly in some type of trouble with my wife, or girlfriend, my boss, co-workers, and after a time, the police. In and out of jail a lot.

[I was] Easily misled by anything that looks or sounds good. Managing myself was a disaster, especially financially. It led me to not wanting to live anymore. But I would not kill myself, not on purpose anyway.

Then, I met Jesus. And Psalm 23 made perfect sense.

Turning my life over to Jesus makes perfect sense. What a relief it is to not have to be in control of my life. Hallelujah!”

My parents planned the memorial together, and the invitation asked everyone to wear Hawaiian shirts, which says a lot about the man being remembered. They also cleaned out Paul’s house and found homes for his belongings, one drawer, one brush, and one book at a time.

I’m still impressed by how my parents show up for other people. Paul gave my dad a friendship he wouldn’t have found among people who looked like my dad, and my dad returned it by showing up all the way to the end, and then for a while after.

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This post was originally posted on my Substack.