It is Christmas
morning 2020. While Lily, our Border collie, and I have been outside in the
darkness the coffee pot has been filling drip by drip. As I look up into the
heavens and pray that my body will be a living sacrifice and my mind renewed on
this Christmas Day (Romans 12:1-2), I am aware that the body will require
coffee to lift the rocket alertly and joyfully off the ground.
Back in the kitchen,
as I select my Christmas mug my vision moves to Christmas 1989, our first
Christmas in Richmond, VA…thirty-one years past…could it have really been that
long ago? But it isn’t just Christmas 1989 that I’m seeing, it is also a frigid
night in February 1989; for without that frigid February night there would have
been no Christmas mug.
I suppose I
should say, lest you misconceive what this mug looks like, that it does not
look like anything associated with Christmas. It is not green and red, it does
not have Santa and reindeer or stockings and chimneys or snowmen and sleighs. We
do indeed have mugs of that ilk that we display and use during Christmas. Our decorative
Christmas mugs are packed and unpacked each year, but the Christmas mug
is in the cupboard all yearlong and I use it throughout the year along with
other old and comfortable mugs.
The Christmas
mug is five inches tall and holds 16 ounces. It is ceramic with a light grey
background, with two adult mallard ducks on one side and a smaller mallard on
the other side. No one who sees this mug has any reason to associate it with
Christmas; a mug-thief would not steal this mug for his Christmas collection.
On the February
night in question, I received a phone call from the maintenance supervisor of a
townhouse rental community I managed in the Lakeside section of metropolitan
Richmond; he told me that most of the homes were suddenly without heat. Since
the temperatures were below 20 degrees, this was an emergency. As I drove the approximately
twenty miles from home to the property, I wondered what the problem could be.
Had this been a high rise community with a central heating system we’d know
where to begin, but each of these townhouses had individual gas furnaces, so
why would they all stop working at once? I realized that the problem must be
the fuel supply, it must be the natural gas, why weren’t the furnaces getting the
gas to burn? Since I had only been on my job about three weeks and was still
learning the properties in my portfolio, I would have to wait until I got to
the community for investigate further.
O my was it cold,
as my great-great Aunt Martha would say, it was “bitter cold.” Cold and windy
and snowy. By the time I arrived at the community, the City of Richmond’s natural
gas utility department was there and had diagnosed the problem; the gas lines
had frozen. Moisture in the exterior gas lines that fed the individual
townhomes had frozen, blocking the flow of natural gas to the furnaces – this
would be a long night under the blankets for the residents of the community.
There was nothing we could do until the temperatures began rising in the
morning.
The next day I
was back at the property around 11:00 A.M., the gas service having been
restored as soon as possible earlier in the morning. Restoring the service
entailed more than simply waiting for the lines to thaw, it also meant going
into each of the one hundred fifty homes and lighting the pilots on the stoves,
furnaces, and water heaters. This was a two-person job, one of our employees
working with an employee of the utility department.
As I was in the
business office reviewing the situation with the property manager, the
maintenance supervisor came in and said, “Bob, we have a problem with unit 423.
When we went into the place to light the appliances we could hardly walk
through the living room to the kitchen because there was so much stuff in the
house; books and newspapers and magazines piled high from the floor so that
there is only a narrow pathway to get from one end of the room to the other. When
we got to the kitchen there were unwashed dishes and pots and pans piled high
in the sink and on the counters; the stove was crusted over with food. Nothing
looked like it had been cleaned in years.”
“Bob, the smell was
so bad that we could hardly breathe. When we went back outside the Richmond
utility worker vomited…it was that bad.”
When I was in
property management and people asked me what I did, I never could explain it. I
might say something like, “In the morning I may be in a meeting with bankers
and in the afternoon I may be looking at raw sewage in a manhole.” Everyday had
its own challenges, many of them unexpected, such as a community losing its
natural gas fuel supply or finding out that one of your residents is a hoarder,
a health risk, and a fire risk.
“What’s the
resident’s name?” I asked.
“Mary Wells,”
Frank the supervisor said.
I looked at the
property manager and said, “Alice, would you please pull her file for me? Frank
and I are going to visit her and I want to review it when I get back.”
I gave the door
three light knocks and then was looking at Mary Wells. She was around
forty-five years old, modestly dressed, and did not in any manner resemble a
crazy-cat-lady.
“Good morning
Miss Wells. I’m Bob Withers with King Properties, I imagine you know why we’re
here. May we please come in?”
“Of course,” she
replied as she stepped back into her living room and gestured for us to enter.
There was barely
enough room for Frank, Ms. Wells, and me to stand together as I surveyed the
first floor of her townhouse. From wall to wall, from floor but not quite to
ceiling, were stacks of magazines, books, newspapers, paper bags, and boxes;
with only a narrow walkway to get to the kitchen and to the stairs leading to
the second floor.
I took a few
moments to take it all in before saying, “Ms. Wells, this needs to be cleaned
up within thirty days. I’ll be sending you a letter confirming this and we’ll
be back in thirty days to inspect your home. As you are probably aware, this is
a health hazard and a fire hazard.”
“I understand,”
she said.
“Thank you,” I
said as Frank and I left her home. There was no need for me to look at the
kitchen, no need to prolong the uncomfortable visit, no need to embarrass the
lady, no need to tread further into the private life of another person. And
yet, the life of Mary Wells wasn’t private anymore because when you rent a
place to live you make a covenant with the landlord to take reasonable care of
the property and to not endanger the health and welfare of your neighbors.
Alice had Ms. Wells’
file ready for me when I returned to the rental office. As I sat and read
through it I asked myself, “Who is this person? Who is she and why is her home
in its current state?” Mary Wells had lived at Lakeside Manor for about fifteen
years, she had always paid her rent on time and there had been no complaints
about her from other residents or staff. Mary was an RN who had been with her
current employer, Metropolitan Hospital, for eighteen years. Her nearest
relative, the person to notify in case of emergency, was a daughter who lived
in California.
As I thought
about what I was reading, about what I had seen in her townhouse, and about the
eyes of Mary Wells that I had looked into – not eyes of defiance, not even eyes
of embarrassment, but rather eyes of resignation – I thought, “She is in emotional
and psychological trouble and I don’t want this to push her over the edge.
There is no way she can cleanup her home within thirty days by herself, or even
within sixty days – I have to protect her neighbors from a health and fire
hazard, but I also want to help her.” I knew that before Mary could climb the
physical mountain of decluttering and cleaning her house, that she’d need help
in climbing out of the emotional and mental abyss that had devoured her. She’d
likely pursue both goals at the same time, but she couldn’t do it alone.
I made a copy of
her file and took it with me as I returned to my office. Later that day, with
her file open on my desk, I telephoned Metropolitan Hospital and asked for
Human Resources. When HR answered my call I asked to speak to the director;
after a short wait I began the conversation:
“Hi, I’m Bob
Withers with King Properties here in Richmond. I realize this is a highly
unusual call, but I’m calling you about a long-term employee of yours who needs
your help.”
I then described
the events of the past twenty-four hours, leaving out the part when the City of
Richmond employee vomited as a result of the stench in Mary’s home. I explained
that I had a legal and moral duty to ensure that Mary’s house was safe and
sanitary and was not endangering the lives of her neighbors, but that I was
also concerned that Mary would be unable to emotionally cope with the requirement
that she make her home safe and habitable. I did not want Mary to go over the
edge of whatever precipice she was on, and I was certain that Metropolitan
Hospital did not want to lose a valued nurse.
The director of
HR listened attentively, asked a few questions, and then thanked me for
calling. Later that day I sent Mary a letter explaining that she needed to
declutter her townhouse, clean it, and that we would inspect her home after
thirty days. The letter also indicated that should Mary not comply, that her
lease could be terminated. This was a legal notice in accordance with the terms
of the lease and the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia. As much as I cared
about Mary, I also cared about her neighbors, about the liability of the owner
of the property, and about health and safety and fire codes – I had to fulfill a
number of responsibilities in which “time was of the essence.”
About six weeks
later I asked Alice and Frank to please inspect Mary’s townhouse. I had given
Mary a couple of extra weeks to do what needed to be done, hoping that the news
would be good. I was both thankful and relieved when Alice called to tell me
that Mary’s home was cleaned and decluttered. Life in property management does
not always work out so well, but we do what we can and hope that God will work
in people’s lives.
As the year
progressed, I didn’t think much about Mary, after all, I had multiple
properties and hundreds of residents on my mind; and at any given time,
numerous employees and residents were grabbing at me for attention – wanting me
to address problems large and small. Plus, of course, the owner of our company
expected me to provide good returns on his investments. Thanksgiving Day was
sweet that year; Vickie and I and one of the property staffs cooked
Thanksgiving dinner for the residents of a senior citizen community close to
McGuire VA Medical Center – the local Methodist church let us use its kitchen
and dining room - and there were plenty of leftovers for folks to take back to
their apartments.
A few days
before Christmas 1989, one afternoon as I walked into our corporate office the
receptionist said, “Bob, a lady was here this morning and dropped something off
for you, it’s in the conference room.”
On the
conference table was a straw basket, within which was an assortment of hot chocolate
mixes and teas, surrounding a tall mug with two adult mallards on the front and
a small mallard on the back. A small envelope was in the basket, the note
inside said, “Thank you. Mary Wells.”
Who can we give
hope to during this season of upheaval and chaos? Who can we help? Who can we
encourage? We can all make a difference in the lives of others, someway,
somehow.
We often rightly
emphasize the wonderful words of John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish,
but have eternal life.” But what does this look like in our lives? This
passage must be more than words, it must be about more than simply saying, “I
believe John 3:16.” It must be reflected in our lives as we incarnationally live
1 John 3:16:
“We know love by
this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for
the brethren.” Or, as Mark 12:29 – 31
teaches us, we are to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbor as
ourselves.
Now you know the
story of my Christmas mug.
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