I was thinking of my old sponsor Tom L. this morning. He was quite a guy and to me a true example of what sobriety is all about. I think of him a lot and wish I could be what he was. Or at least close to it.
I remember being in his small and plain little apartment, where he and his wife lived. I spent a lot of time there. I particularly remember their kitchen. It was tiny and cramped and very hot in the summers. On one of the walls was a print of an old peasant man with a coffee cup and a piece of bread on the table in front of him. The old man is praying, his hands folded and his eyes closed. A picture of humility. I knew, every morning that Tom sat with a cup of coffee, looking out the window toward the street I lived on, praying and meditating before he went to work. I often thought how like the old man in the picture Tom was.
His wife Fern told me, after I had been in the program for a while, how Tom would go to this window in the morning and watch for me to come out and get in my car to go to work. She said he was checking up on me, because he feared I might not come out one morning due to convulsions or the DTs. After six months she said he stopped watching. I never knew that. She laughingly told me that she once suggested to him that he should move into my house with me to make sure I was all right.
At meetings in our home group, Tom would stand outside the door and greet each new arrival, making sure that they were welcomed. There was a long line of members who wanted Tom to sponsor them, but he was careful to keep those he sponsored in a manageable limit. Why he picked me I never understood. I know I was a pest and probably drove him crazy with my whining and constant litany of my problems. Yet he would patiently smile and listen.
Tom never attempted to manage my life. But, he could be very direct and tough when the moment called for it. He had this way with him, when he wouldn’t mince words. I remember how he punctured my ego’s baloon on many occassion and cut me down to size when my head got too big for my hat.
I remember one night, after a meeting, when I was clamoring for his attention, he turned to me and flattened me with just a few words. He said to me that he couldn’t talk to me at the time, because he had others who really needed his help. I suddenly realized at that moment that I thought it was all about me and found out it wasn’t. Without his ever saying it, he was teaching me what humility was all about. I was so blinded by me that I never knew I was a rival to others who needed him. He got me out of the competition with the only thing that would wake me up. Like he often said, I needed a two by four up the side of my head to get my attention.
Why am I telling this? For a couple of reasons. One is because I was thinking about how I was so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t know how much I was in competition with others for Tom’s attention. There was a rivalry going on and I needed to win. Until that night when he slapped me up by the side of the head, I had never looked at this side of me. I had been doing this all my life. It came to a screeching halt that very night. I know now that Tom could see that and he probably knew it had to be the right time to call this to my attention. Thank God he did. It probably saved my sobriety. And I know that it took a lot of courage on his part to do that.
The other reason is this. One weekend, when I was about fifteen years sober, he and and a few members of our home group went on a two day retreat. One of the things discussed on that weekend was the state of the group. Tom told those men that it was time that the leadership of the group be passed on to younger members. I was among a few who were mentioned as candidates for this mission. When another man, who was in attendance, came back and told me this, I was filled up with a whole lot of feelings. I had arrived I told myself. I forgot what AA was all about and I awaited the moment when I would be called upon to take my place at the head of the group. It never came.
Tom and some of the other old timers must have seen this swelling of my ego and took a step back. I realize now that I wasn’t ready. I haven’t thought about this in a long time, but for some reason it came back to me this morning. Thank God that these men had the wisdom to know this. I now know that Tom was more concerned with me staying sober than allowing me to enter into a phase of self destruction. What a guy.
When I think about those days with Tom, I realize how right he was about a lot of things. Especially about “my arrival”. I realize now that I still haven’t “arrived” after all these years.
I don’t think I ever will. It’s all right. I’m glad I haven’t and need to just stay sober a day at a time, like Tom showed me to do.
This is just and expression of gratitude to a man I so admired and still do to this day. I know a few of you who receive this knew Tom. I wish all of you could have known him as we did.
Luggage? GPS? Comic books?