Memories of Jim Phenicie

Memories of Jim Phenicie,
By a neighbor - Jim O’Donnell - fortunate to have been his friend, 6-5-07

“Eternal God, our heavenly father, who loves us with an everlasting love, and who can turn even the shadow of death into a bright new morning: Help us, grieving family and friends of Jim Phenicie, to wait on you with reverence and believing hearts. In the sadness of this hour, give us the joy that lets us catch a fresh glimpse of You , our Lord, who so beautifully guided our beloved Jim for so long.

Beyond our sense of loss, speak to us of eternal things.

Bless and use my memories of Jim to reveal the soul of a great friend hidden in such an extraordinarily humble man. Give us hope and patience to be lifted from the darkness and distress we now feel amid this enormous change and reordering of life. We know Jim is in a far better place. But we still miss him. And our humanity tugs at us, wanting him back a while longer.

In the meantime, give us peace, dear Jesus, through your Spirit’s invisible presence.” Amen.


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I’m not standing before you because I want to. I certainly didn’t want Jim’s death; nor, in light of his dying, would I ever have asked to speak on behalf of his family and friends.

I’m not worthy or deserving to speak for so many of you who knew and loved Jim so much longer and more deeply than I did. But dear Jean asked me to speak as Jim’s friend and neighbor, so, with God’s help and grace, I want to try my best for Jean. But, Jean, it’s hard to speak of Jim without speaking of you. So forgive me if I include you in some of these memories, too.

There are so many, many ways for me to remember my friend Jim Phenicie.
• A man who was always “1,000%”.
• A mistreated orphan who grew up to be a pastor.
• A pastor who felt unworthy of being a pastor and became a janitor.
• The loving father to five sons and one daughter; grandfather to 23 and great-grandfather to 13. (And how fortunate you all are to have such an ancestor.)
• A roaming junk man who could fix, even redeem, almost any broken thing.
• An artist and woodworker
• A lover of Jesus.
• The lover of Jean.
• A writer of poetry.
• And a man who yearned and prayed, daily, to be a blessing to someone.

And I could, in just few minutes, I’m sure, dash through a dozen touching little memories of my friend Jim that would bring a smile -- or a tear -- to you. But in the few minutes I have to speak of my dear friend Jim, I’d rather take the man’s full measure by recalling just two memories, but I want to recall each in more detail.

Both memories reveal Jim’s soul, and that particular desire of his to be a blessing to someone, somehow, everyday.

One memory recalls our move to Huntington 13 years ago, the other involves Jim’s special love for Nathan. I have pondered these memories many times, and know I will continue to think about them as long as I live.

Let me explain. When Lizzie and I moved to Huntington in the summer of 1994, Lizzie arrived two weeks ahead of me to greet the movers, who did a truly wretched job of transporting our worldly belongings from Boston, Massachusetts. Several “antique-y” pieces, very special to Lizzie, were broken through incompetence and carelessness. Then, the moving truck couldn’t get down our driveway. Lizzie told me this over the phone, and told me about a nice, older man, from across the street, who worked so hard, late into the night, to help out. He had a pick-up truck, Lizzie told me, and he ferried load after load of stuff out of the moving van parked illegally on Jefferson St. and brought the stuff around back to Cherry St., up our driveway and into the back of our house. This was a long and painful process for Lizzie to behold, late at night, in the humid heat of mid-July, 1994. And it was Jim Phenicie, who didn’t know us from the man-in-the-moon, who, unasked, went way out of his way, to be a blessing to Lizzie that night.

Two weeks later, Lizzie was back in Boston and I had arrived in Indiana, to do some set up and repair. I especially wanted to fix the seven pieces of broken furniture that had broken Lizzie’s heart. Lizzie would be back in mid-August for good, and I wanted her to feel a little better about our move, if I could. Our dining room table, for instance, which came down to Lizzie from her great-grandmother – also named Elizabeth - had collapsed, like a card table, in the move. Yet, as I talked over the phone to Lizzie back in Boston, and as I looked at that very dining room table she said was so broken, there it was, in front of me, standing now, in fine shape, with boxes on top of it, no less.

So, I turned my eye to an old mahogany plant stand. It, too, had been demolished, or so Lizzie told me. Yet, there it was, also looking as good as I had always remembered it.

What was Lizzie talking about? Was she not well? Was the stress of this big move getting to her? What did she mean by “seven broken items” that had upset her so much? Did she mean scratched? Even that I couldn’t see. Yes, our new home was a jumble of boxes. But there were no broken items in desperate need of fixing.

Turned out, that Phenicie man, who had helped ferry the items from the moving truck into the house had seen Lizzie’s distress, and, somehow, over the days after she had left, yet before I arrived, he’d gotten back into the house, and fixed them all.

Like an angel! With pixie dust!

When I finally learned of this great kindness and met this Jim Phenicie, I wanted to thank him and pay him. Do you know what he did? He gave me two, hand-written bills. One, he said, was in case I could collect damages from the moving company. That bill was for the whopping sum of $90. A second bill, should I not be able to collect a dime from the moving company, was for $45. But that second bill, he assured me, didn’t need to paid at all. He was just sorry we’d had such a painful welcome to Huntington, IN.

That was my introduction to the extravagant graciousness of Jim Phenicie. And I had the good fortune to be his neighbor. Thoughtfulness and consideration like this oozed from Jim, again and again, like heat from a stove.

But as unforgettable as my first memory is, I have one more to share that is, to me, even more powerful. Because the second memory kept unfolding. It didn’t happen just once. It’s my memory of Jim and his relationship with his special son, Nathan, and the remarkable love Jim had for him. That love for Nathan guided, shaped, and challenged me, too, in the choices I was and would be making.

As some of you may know, not long after the moving van had unloaded our belongings, my dear Lizzie was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer, which led to heart failure, and then to a very risky heart transplant. Over the last 13 years, this good and dear woman has faced many other medical problems. I confess that as a husband and father – and, like Jim and Jean, as a lover of Jesus -- I despaired at times over what was happening to our family, over what had set off such rage from hell or anger from heaven because we had come to Huntington.

Also, you may know that most men like to fix things more than talk or even relate to others. And, sometimes, when men can’t fix things, they give up. Women, on the other hand, are often much, much better dealing with life’s unsolvable problems. They just hang in there. But with Nathan, both Jean and Jim hung in there. Jim was no absentee father. He loved Nathan extraordinarily, even if that love didn’t fix Nathan. Well, my love for my Lizzie couldn’t fix her either. But I had to learn to live with that. Jim showed me not only how to hang on, but how to love that someone I wanted to hang on to yet whose illnesses could still drive me crazy.

I confess there were times when I despaired with the open-ended suffering Lizzie and I face. I grew angry with God, too. I told Jim about this. He told me that he prayed for us every day. And I know he did. But I still wondered why we were being tested so severely? Sometimes, my coping skills failed. At such times, I could complain and whine to Jim; he let me. He never judged me. I could always go across the street and share a care. He always made time for me.

Yet, all the while, it was not lost on me who Jim was. He was not some twenty-something year old, bouncing along, carefree, effortlessly going from victory to victory in Jesus, because his faith made everything easy. No, in truth, Jim (and Jean) struggled sometimes, too. They got worn-out, very profoundly, with Nathan, at times, who could get upset with, say, the weather and abusive with his elderly parents, even though he meant no harm.

Over on Jim’s side of No. Jefferson St., I watched real love and devotion – no schmaltzy, sentimental Hallmark Card stuff. I saw it in Jim as a dad and as a husband up-close and personal and could only hope that, one day, I, too, would grow into the kind of patient, unconditional love for my Lizzie and her illnesses, that Jim had for Nathan. Jim’s (and Jean’s) example, from a life-time of suffering love, turned on its head, the goal in life I had heard so much about – the one about pursuing my own dreams, of seeking my comfort, my luxury, early retirement, and ease -- the dream of the carefree American life -- of self-absorption and endless devotion to personal pleasure.

At Jim’s, the dream was simply to hold onto Nathan as long as possible. That dream ran deep, for Jim had loved his Nathan for over 40 years by the time I first met him; Jim never given up on Nathan – no matter what - and his loving of Nathan came to shape and change Jim’s own life.

Jim’s love for Nathan, his sidekick in the pickup, his buddy with the rabbit, his friend to pick up sticks and sweep the front walk – never far from Jim’s watchful eye - all this -- showed me Jesus’ self-sacrificial love lived out before my very eyes. And I needed that example more than I needed anything else, certainly more than I needed the self-pity I got from some.

What a profound example Jim Phenicie lived out in front of me, day after day. From the very beginning of my learning about suffering love for my Lizzie, Jim gave this weak-kneed beginner courage to face the rigors of long-term, chronic illness in a loved one I also wanted to keep on loving – no matter what. Silently, Jim’s example and his friendship kept me asking myself good questions, like, “What are you made of?” “Is your faith in God real?” “What do you really know about love?”

In God’s answers to the many prayers that I raised up seeking guidance, help, his hope, wisdom, constancy, and love, it’s as if God gave me Jim Phenicie, as a visual reminder, in the midst of my own struggles. For Jim – and yes, for you, too, Jean -- I am, and will remain, forever grateful. Both of your examples, especially with Nathan, gave me courage; directed my steps. Your simple but deep wisdom and virtue have meant the world to me.

Jean, I’m so sorry that you are now, for a while, to be parted from Jim. I love you. You and Jim made me feel like the son of a certain kind of father and mother I never had. So much in our world brings before our eyes celebrities whose tawdry lives or depravity with money or power struggles or relational disasters offer us nothing to live by, to grow by, to ponder. But you and Jim were and are the real deal. You gave me the jackpot. You are “the real thing”- and you offer all of us, if only we have the ears to hear - the pearls of great value, the keys to eternal joy.

And Jim, you’re home now. You were, all along, only a strangely wonderful sort of ambassador from another world anyway. Yes, we’ll miss you. But we all know you’re in a far better place now. Your race is over, and you’ve won. You’ve won the only prize, too, that is truly worth winning. May we each run our own races more wisely in light of having known you, Jim.

I know I speak for many, I’m sure, in expressing the hope that, one glorious day, we will meet you again, and you will shout aloud that you are “1000%” in your creaky voice -- in that place beyond tears, beyond time. But right now, I hope, you -- simple, humble, truly good man that you were -- can bask in the words I hear in the distance, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little… Now enter into the joy of your Master.”