Lee Paul Stark: That Damn Toilet

"As it was in the Beginning, so shall it be in the End."   - Matthew 24:37

It was all because of that damn toilet. None of this would have happened if not for that damn toilet backing up into the bathtub. The opening scene consisted of an old home, old plumbing, and well-seasoned motel manager muttering profanities under his breath every time he flushed. 

His name was Lee, and for weeks he woke up every morning hoping, praying, and finally cursing the problem to work itself out. Plumbing by profanity is a universally applied useful tool, which has a 100% failure rate, but maybe, just maybe, this time it would work. Predictably, it didn't. However, this particular persistent plumbing problem and the distinguished foul-mouthed gentleman name Lee constituted my miracle.

He was aggravated and impatient as he made his way across the parking lot to employ a more cooperative toilet for his morning constitutional. That's what Lee was looking for a more cooperative toilet. What Lee got instead was me. 

I'm somehow drawn, almost led to aggravated and impatient people. That's my superpower which directed me to Lee. 

"What's wrong, brother?" I asked.

"I've got a damn toilet that backs up into my bathtub every time I flush." Lee growled back.
"Well, I can fix it for you if you let me take a look."

Three hours later the problem was remedied, and five years later here I stand telling you about one of the most significant people in my life. One of the very few who not only helped me escape homelessness, but also facilitated me helping others still trapped behind. Like I said, "Lee constituted my miracle."

A toilet is a firm foundation on which to build a relationship, and so we built. It turned out that Lee and I had much in common: both of us raised in large cities, being instinctively argumentative, extraordinarily opinionated, and generally right about everything almost all the time, just to name a few. 

Then, there were the uniquely precious parts that were all Lee. He was a Jew from the Bronx raised in a kosher home. His lineage traced back to the Tribe of the Levites; Priests to the One True God.

His father was a hard-working man who wanted a better life for his boys. Lee's mother was a loving woman who loved her family more than anything else in this world. 

Lee had an old-school American childhood in the archaic days before cell phones. He told me how mothers in his neighborhood would communicate by shouting out the window, then relaying the message from building to building, down the block to its intended recipient. This old urban telephone network was called "Ma Yell". 

Back in these days of real community, if Lee or another child were caught doing wrong, any parent within sight had the obligation to tan the kid's hide as a down payment, then send them home to their father where the principle and interest on the beating came due upon receipt. Lee covered the cost on a number of these, almost always with good cause.

Lee was my mentor, my friend, my surrogate father, and a reminder of my own father because they told the same jokes… repeatedly.

I can count the fights between Lee and I on three fingers. All of them middle ones. All of them laid to rest long ago because none of them really mattered. None of them ever do. Between us and God there is only Eternity. That is what matters. That is the distance each of us will cross. Everything else is meaningless in comparison. Everything else is but ashes and dust.

Lee was one of the good ones. One of the dwindling The Greatest Generation few. One that I was not ready to let go, but now we all must because Lee has crossed Eternity. There Lee remains with our God. Here we remain for just a while longer. 

So, good-bye for now my friend. Until we meet again... you'll have to fix your own damn toilet.

Amen.

Lee is a Star