Quiet Strength

The first thing I noticed was hyena laughter grating on the edge of my nerves. I turned toward the sound. There they were, pointing and hooting! They were so overcome with mirth, they could barely stand up! I was a single mom and a secretary at the main campus of a large university. I was sick to death of teenage boys pretending to pursue an education! I wondered, as the boys continued to point in my direction, why they were laughing at me. Then I saw the professor. He was standing in the middle of the street, trembling violently, and unable to move. The boys thought he was simply hilarious.

Suddenly, I felt terrible outrage. I recognized the professor, though I had never met him. I tore across campus, anger giving wings to my feet. I wanted to reach those boys and pound the life out of them. I wanted to be the strongest man in the world and beat them to a pulp! Instead, I raced towards the helpless professor, who was having one of his most violent attacks. Professor Smythe* had Parkinson's disease.

I reached him, without a plan. Cars were zooming around him, drivers blowing their horns. Furious, I stood there helpless, and not a rock within reach. I didn't know him, except to exchange greetings, but he always had the most angelic smile. What was he doing in the street alone? Usually his graduate students guarded him like faithful dogs, walking with him wherever he needed to go, protecting him from bullies and jerks. His courage amazed me.

I tried to talk to him, to find out what to do, but he was shaking so violently, he couldn't speak. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I threw my arms around him, and I held him close, whispering in his ear. "Shush. Shhh. Everything will be all right. I'm here. I'll help you. Shhh." I held him as close as I could, ignoring the hoots and hollers of the idiots in the street. I rocked him, speaking in low tones, much as I did for my own baby daughter, when she would sob those breathy sobs that children often do.

After a time, the professor's trembling calmed a little, and I was able to help him to the sidewalk. I walked with him until we came upon two of his students, who had been unavoidably detained. They were very upset when they heard what had happened. They vowed to make certain that two of them would always be available to accompany the professor.

In the days that followed, I began to time my lunch to coincide with the professor's walk across campus. I looked for opportunities to speak with him. He was forgiving, and the kindest man I had ever known. There was no treatment for Parkinson's in 1969, but Professor Smythe was never resentful.

"Perhaps," he would say, "I can give people a reason to practice kindness. Perhaps they will reflect upon life's blessings, believing that 'there but for the grace of God, go I.'"

I supposed that perhaps God was just making a bigger place in hell for the ones who were as thoughtless as those boys. He laughed, but he let me know that he felt no ill will towards them. I figured it was a good thing that I never saw those two boys again, because I fantasized their demise, in gut-wrenching detail.

One of the last times that I saw Professor Smythe, he told me that, as he stood there trembling in the street, he had prayed that God would send him an angel to help him. "And God sent you," he said, looking at me with his kind eyes.

That thought gave me chills, because my thoughts were anything but angelic. However, Professor Smythe made me want to become the kind of person that he believed I was. After the spring term came and went, Professor Smythe never returned. He died six months later. Though I've never been able to completely overcome my temper, I think I have become a more gentle person thanks to that special man and his quiet strength.

*not his real name

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