The Shirt Off Your Back

Many of our linguistic idioms are grounded in something practical and tangible, even if the circumstances around them seem anachronistic.

Today, you’ll still hear references to people who are described as so generous they would “give you the shirt off their back,” even though we live in a society where true clotheslessness is not a pressing need.

However, I did find myself in need recently, and this is the story of just such a man.

Cold Comfort

Two months ago, we had an unexpected ice storm hit the area. I was at work in a series of departmental meetings, and while we were fortunate that there was not a huge issue with power outages, I was prevented from getting home. And even if I had made it home successfully, there was a much greater chance that I would be socked in by icy streets on the very hilly terrain surrounding my neighborhood.

I was committed to staying, but I didn’t have a shirt to wear the next day.

One of my co-workers, James Chapman, got a spare from his house. The shirt not exactly off his back, but one of his best.

A couple of days later, I dropped it off to be dry cleaned, as I wanted to return it in the same condition he’d presented it to me. James wasn’t in, he was battling a nasty case of the flu… so I had one of the administrative assistants open up his office just long enough to hang the shirt on the inside of his door.

I didn’t see James the next week, because the flu was keeping him down. It later settled in as pneumonia, and he ended up in intensive care.

What started as a persistent cough during our meetings became the flu.

What he endured as a flu became pneumonia.

And that pneumonia transformed into Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.

After 48 days in the ICU, James is gone to a better place.

Senseless

There’s no way to make sense of such things. Trying to do so will only make you dizzy, or even crazy.

It does make you pause.

One of my coworkers said “This is one of those ‘Hug your loved ones now because you never know‘ sorta moments,” and he’s right. You can’t take those moments for granted; none of us know how long we have.

We pay our respects tomorrow, and there will be many of us. James touched a lot of people in that way, through his unique humor, his balance, his ability, his diplomacy and his faith. He was generous to the core, and I am going to miss him a lot.

That’s what I was thinking about today, as I saw that yellow shirt hanging in his office.