My Christmas Mug

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.