Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:
“Gun, I think I broke my foot.”
-John Blesz
That was how my night started on Friday, after a long week
at Boys State held in Warrensburg,
MO. As you may have heard me say
on previous Gun’s Quotes in years’ past, Missouri Boys State is one of the
finest – if not the finest – leadership experience for young men in the nation.
John, who was the City Counselor for Ingle City
that week, was running after some participants (we call them citizens) who were
causing a ruckus at the end of the week. He tripped over a trashcan left in the
hallway and went flying into a steel door frame.
Now, mind you, John has a 6’5” frame weighing nothing less
than 230 lbs. He’s played college football for Loras
College in Dubuque, IA.
There’s no question that he has powered through some pain in his life. Yet, when
I saw him in his room, he was reeling and screaming like a baby.
He told me the story of how this happened while I used the bag
of ice I brought up to try to slow the swelling of a size 14 foot that was
quickly growing a lump about the size of a baseball. There was blood from a
toenail that was bent all the way back. We have a doctor or two on staff, and I
called both of them to get their opinion on what to do next. Both were of the
opinion that a break was very likely and it was time to go to the ER.
John didn’t want to do this, of course. It was Friday night
at Boys State, the most special night of the
entire program. There, City Counselors would wrap up what happened during the
previous week and talk about their collective experiences. It was their last
opportunity to directly inspire the citizens to go out and do something with
what they had learned over the course of the week. It was also an opportunity
to reflect on everything they had accomplished, despite any of the adversity
that they brought in to the program. Friday night is a touching, heart-felt
night and John wanted to be a part of it.
After the ice numbed-down his foot enough to get up on
crutches, John hobbled over the door and addressed his City one last time
before jumping in to my car for a trip to the hospital. After a few brief
comments, he simply explained that he will be back as soon as he can to offer a
final word to his City.
The Emergency Room was littered with a bunch of people that
frankly didn’t look like they were having much of an emergency. We must have
looked pretty goofy, considering that a former football player was hopping on
one foot with his shoulder wrapped around a scrawny 5’8” guy like myself. (His
crutches were too short and he decided it better to hop on one leg holding on
to me instead of trying to use them.) We made our way to the front desk and
checked in. After that, we moved off to the side and propped John’s foot on a
table. I replaced the same bag of ice I had earlier on his foot and we sat
around and talked about life for a solid 45 minutes or hour. I didn’t know John
that well but we certainly got to know each other better as we spoke about how Boys State
went for each of us that week, our families, our friends and life in general.
The ice bag, naturally, had a giant hole in it. In the time
of our conversation, a large puddle of water appeared on the floor. I went off
to the restroom to pull some paper towels to clean it up. While there, a young
man in the emergency room started talking to John.
Wyatt was a 6th-grader, eleven years-old and
walking with a prosthetic left leg. His right leg was braced and it was clear
he had some difficulty getting around. While I was in the bathroom, Wyatt
introduced himself to John by giving him a small letter. It simply read “Get
well soon!” and instructed John to turn the paper over. Wyatt drew John a
picture.
Suddenly, the highly-upset and grimacing John perked up. For
a moment, he had forgotten that he was missing his last opportunity to inspire
his citizens (and that he had perhaps broken his foot) and focused on playing
with Wyatt instead. John started drawing pictures with Wyatt and talking about
what he liked to do. “Legos” Wyatt said. Eventually Wyatt revealed that he
liked root beer and John wandered off in to the labyrinth of the hospital
looking for a vending machine that had root beer. He eventually came back with
two A&Ws, a bag of popcorn and an apple fritter. Wyatt admitted that he
didn’t like Apple, but gladly ate the whole bag of popcorn and downed the
entire bottle of A&W, saying, “I haven’t had dinner tonight.”
At some point in the evening, I got a phone call by Tim, the
Dean of Operations at Boys
State and a world-class neurologist
who was one of the two doctors that looked at John and said that he should go
to the hospital earlier that night. Tim wanted to know how he was doing. “He’s
being a City Counselor,” I said. “He’s mentoring a young boy who is here in the
emergency room lobby.”
Wyatt was in the emergency room lobby because his brother
had put his arm through a window and needed stitches. Wyatt explained that
their family’s landlord was too cheap to put screens on the windows. (Although
I have to admit I’m not quite sure how that keeps one from putting their arm
through a window.) It was about that time that Wyatt’s family was called back
in to the Emergency Room, and everyone got up to leave. “Ma’am?” John asked to
Wyatt’s mom. “I’d be happy to watch him out here while you are in the back.”
Wyatt’s mom, a plump, homely-looking woman who bore the wrinkles of life’s
problems on her forehead said that it would be fine.
Wyatt and John continued to draw and talk about Legos, what
Wyatt wants to do when he grows up and his favorite class in school. They
enjoyed each other’s company until it was finally John’s time to go back in to
the ER… a mere two hours later. Wyatt wanted to go back with John and,
naturally, John let him.
While in the room, the nurse informed us that three charts
were ahead of us, and that it would probably be 45 minutes before the doctor
could see us. John looked at me. “Gun,” he said, “Call Jay and check to see
where the City is.”
Jay was John’s Assistant City Counselor. In John’s absence,
Jay was running the meeting. “There are three or four left,” Jay said,
referring to the number of citizens left to give their “goodbye” speech to
everybody else.
“We’re leaving,” John said. Then he turned around and headed
for the exit.
“Leaving?” We had waited three hours for X-Rays, and now,
John wanted to go back to his City.
“Gun,” he said, “The experiences of tonight can’t go unsaid.
I have to tell my City about this.” I empathized with him; I knew the
importance of the night’s events.
We made our way up two flights of stairs, John’s arm around
my shoulders, to the area where John’s City was gathered. We got to the door
when the citizens literally all stood up to go to bed. I opened the door and
yelled, “Wait!” The citizens all turned around and saw John and immediately
applauded with cheers and shouts of joy.
John made his way to the front of the room, with the smell
of sweaty 17-year-old teenage boys and pizza lingering quite strongly in the
air and the air conditioner that couldn’t keep up rumbling in the background.
“Gentlemen,” John started off in saying. “I want to talk to
you about what has happened to Gun and I for the last three hours.”
He told the story of how upset he was when he left. He was
upset that people were goofing around and he was upset that he was stupid
enough to chase them. He was upset that he thinks he has a broken foot and he
was upset that the hospital still hasn’t looked at him even after three hours. Then
he talked about Wyatt. He pulled out the drawing and letter that Wyatt made for
him. Then he talked about Wyatt and his prosthetic leg, his leg brace, the fact
that his landlord was a cheapskate and the fact that he hadn’t eaten dinner
that night. Wyatt’s circumstances, John explained, “aren’t very good.” Then he
talked about how Wyatt had goals and dreams just like any other ordinary kid.
He talked about how it was going to be so very hard for him to be able to
achieve them.
He then finished with explaining to his City that they have
the ability to go out and do great things because they are uninhibited by so
many of the same constraints. He told them to help change the world, to make it
better for people like Wyatt and others who need help and need somebody to lift
them up because in some cases they simply cannot do so themselves. The lights
were turned off as John asked them to meditate on the many gifts that they had –
that they received over the course of the last week – and on the obligation
that they had to use those gifts to help their world. I couldn’t see many
faces, but I heard many sniffles and the occasional nose-blowing. These young
men quickly realized that John’s fate that night was inspired by some
higher-power and that, in fact, a deeper meaning was behind John’s injury. John
acknowledged this fact as well.
“I told Wyatt that I would be back to say goodbye to him.”
John finished.
After a moment of silence, a citizen piped up and said, “Then
get out of here!”
Cheers and applause burst out as citizens stood up thanking
John for his week’s worth of service and helping them to understand the importance
of living their lives to the fullest. He got hugs from everybody, despite his pain
and the fact that many of them were sweating profusely and without shirts. (You
have to be a part of Boys
State to understand…)
They made their way to bed. He made his way to my car, sitting outside.
It was in this moment that I lost it. “John,” I said, “I’ve
been wanting to witness the Friday night meeting for 10 years now…” I couldn’t
finish. I haven’t been part of Friday night meetings because my role at Boys State
doesn’t involve a City. We cried and hugged each other in my car, both
emotionally moved from the evening and the events that transpired.
It was past one in the morning when we pulled up to the
Emergency Room portico on the hospital. John told me he could make it in on his
crutches. I parked the car.
By the time I got inside, John was leaning against the men’s
room door, sobbing. I rushed over to him, noticing that the lobby was empty and
that there was no sign of Wyatt’s family. I held his shoulder and hugged him.
John wept.
Eventually the sobs grew and he lost his strength to stand.
Falling backwards, I grabbed him underneath the shoulders and caught him soon
enough to keep him from crashing to the ground. I got him to a sitting position.
Then he lost the strength to sit up and his torso fell backward. I caught him
so that his head wouldn’t slam against the concrete floor. Now lying on his
back, he covered his face with his hands as the sobs grew louder. Tears dripped
on the tile.
John wept.
The receptionist, not knowing what was going on, had a
security officer come in to the lobby. He looked and once he had noticed that
John’s sobs were not related to an injury, simply allowed us to be.
“Pick me up,” John said. I grabbed him from underneath the
shoulders again and pulled him up to his foot while his maimed one dangled
helplessly in the air. We made our way over to John’s wheelchair that was left
in the hospital when we departed early for the City. Suddenly, I realized what
caused John’s distress. There, sitting in the wheelchair was a letter from
Wyatt. It simply read, in sixth-grade chicken-scratch, “See you, Bubby. I think
you are the best of my friend.”
My jaw dropped. I took the letter, gently, and sat it on the
table so that John could sit down. He fell in to the chair and I wheeled him
over to the receptionist. He had to go through the registration process all
over again. As he stuttered through the registration, health insurance and
medical history questions, I gathered all of the pictures and letters that were
left in the Emergency Room lobby. Wyatt’s bottle of A&W was gone.
“Are you in pain?” the receptionist asked, sheepishly.
John briefly broke a smile. “No, ma’am,” he said.
“It’s obvious something is wrong,” she said, attempting to
address the white elephant now standing in the room.
“Ma’am,” John said, “Can you tell me who that family was
that was in here earlier, the one with the kid who put his arm through the
window?”
“No,” she said, “HIPPA prohibits that.”
“I understand,” was John’s simple response.
“Can you tell me if they are still here?”
“No.”
“I understand.”
Nobody came to the Emergency Room while John and I were back
at the City, so we were wheeled back in to his room in less than a half-hour.
The nurse took basic vital signs and then left us alone,
John in his wheelchair and me sitting next to him. John’s face fell in to the palms
of his hands.
John wept.
Sitting there with him, alone, I once again put my arm on
his shoulder as I tried, in vain, to console him. Eventually, we prayed
together, praying for Wyatt, praying for John’s City and praying for John’s
healing. At our conclusion, the doctor entered the room and looked at John’s
foot.
“Hmmm,” he said. “Looks like you have quite the toe stub,
there.”
The observation was an irritation after a long and emotional
night. John gave me the look of a person caught in absolute disbelief. I almost
laughed.
“Sir,” John said, his face now stern, “I have to tell you I’m
a bit more concerned about my foot.” He threw his other foot on to the
examination table so that the doctor could see the clear size difference
between his two feet.
“Oh!” the doctor exclaimed, now realizing that X-Rays were
in order.
For whatever it’s worth, they came back negative. John got
painkillers, a dressing on the stubbed toe, crutches that actually fit him and
a CD of the X-Rays for his family practitioner to look at later. We got back to
his City where his Assistant City Counselors were waiting for him. One of his
citizens who got up early to workout that morning greeted him as well. I gave
him all of the drawings and letters that Wyatt made. We hugged one last time
and I went back to my room.
The sun was coming up and the birds were chirping as I
finally hit my pillow. I sat my alarm and chuckled to myself, seeing that the alarm
was a mere hour away. It was going to be a rough day. That’s OK, I thought,
because it was worth it. On this night, I helped a friend in need and grew
closer to him. While doing so, I got to witness a God-inspired event that
touched the lives of 60-some teenaged men, a disabled boy and, of course, my
friend himself. It was John’s selfless act of kindness towards this young boy,
even during intense pain, which reflects the program that I return to year
after year so that the tradition of inspiring leadership and service to the
next generation can continue on.
Leadership and service exemplified by John Blesz.
…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!
