Echo, Keith. George died serving in his own Xian church, which supported him through thick and thin. There is the mainstream, and then there is the lunatic fringe. Even as they protested his clinic, George had no hate for the peaceful pro-lifers who kept their opposition on the legal side. He reserved his caution for the actual spittle-spewing hatemongers.
I knew George for 37 years, as a colleague of my dad's and a friend of the family and as a mentor to the many hundreds of Family Practice residents he helped train. My first job after getting a driver's license was as a lab courier, and his clinic was on my route. When I saw him there he always took a few moments to talk with me, unlike most doctors, to whom couriers are usually invisible unless they screw up.
Years later during the Summer of Mercy when the home services clinic I was managing got briefly picketed by a few of the more radical Operation Rescue fringe (we served AIDS patients, oh noes!) he called me up and said "I don't want to hear you complaining. You got thirty for an afternoon, I've got three thousand for the whole summer." It was just the touch of humor I needed to cheer me up.
I went to the Wichita vigil last night. If the funeral is not a small family affair I will attend that as well as family representative. At the vigil there was a man carrying a "Jesus Saves: God Loves You" sign around. No "Die in Hell" sentiments or such, just his religious message. When the Phelps crew set up their line of venomous spew across the street, well-shielded by WPD, Sign Man didn't join them. He quietly joined the crowd heckling them. And when he held up his sign, he faced it at the Phelps people until their statutory without-a-permit limit was reached and WPD told them to leave. He quietly worked the crowd the rest of the evening, and when several other people with signs tried to "block" him with their signs, he took it gracefully and even with a smile, even negotiating breaks with them so everyone could rest their arms for a bit.
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Date: 2009-06-01 03:54 pm (UTC)I knew George for 37 years, as a colleague of my dad's and a friend of the family and as a mentor to the many hundreds of Family Practice residents he helped train. My first job after getting a driver's license was as a lab courier, and his clinic was on my route. When I saw him there he always took a few moments to talk with me, unlike most doctors, to whom couriers are usually invisible unless they screw up.
Years later during the Summer of Mercy when the home services clinic I was managing got briefly picketed by a few of the more radical Operation Rescue fringe (we served AIDS patients, oh noes!) he called me up and said "I don't want to hear you complaining. You got thirty for an afternoon, I've got three thousand for the whole summer." It was just the touch of humor I needed to cheer me up.
I went to the Wichita vigil last night. If the funeral is not a small family affair I will attend that as well as family representative. At the vigil there was a man carrying a "Jesus Saves: God Loves You" sign around. No "Die in Hell" sentiments or such, just his religious message. When the Phelps crew set up their line of venomous spew across the street, well-shielded by WPD, Sign Man didn't join them. He quietly joined the crowd heckling them. And when he held up his sign, he faced it at the Phelps people until their statutory without-a-permit limit was reached and WPD told them to leave. He quietly worked the crowd the rest of the evening, and when several other people with signs tried to "block" him with their signs, he took it gracefully and even with a smile, even negotiating breaks with them so everyone could rest their arms for a bit.