Just A Simple Guy
Just A Simple Guy
This week’s Mini-Miracle isn’t my own. And it’s more like a Maxi-Miracle. Embodied by a man we will call Leo.**
Leo grew up in a tiny, remote village surrounded by 900 square miles of wilderness. We’ll call the village Amada, which is Spanish for “beloved.” But from the 1800’s, Leo’s ancestors called it home.
Native peoples also called it home beginning 13,000 years ago. And now, many call the land haunted. Indeed, under the dazzling blanket of stars where night is pitch black, accompanied by a symphony of wild creatures and birds, it’s easy to imagine those ghosts hovering, whispering, between this world and the next.
Leo’s family were farmers and ranchers, working and playing hard. As a kid, he was a likable but impudent prankster, raised by his father and aunties after his mother died before he started school. Known for his keen sense of humor and gentle thoughtfulness, some of his cousins nearly a century later recalled him as their “favorite person in life.”
He would have described himself as just a simple guy, working with his dad, hanging out with friends and planning to graduate from high school, marry a pretty girl and have some kids. There would be church on Sundays, backbreaking work and county dances. Just average.
But in September, 1943, the world came knocking for Leo. He reported for Basic Training in the Marines and was later shipped out to the Pacific.
April, 1945 found him in Okinawa, where three days and nights of monsoon rain and battle churned the ground into a stinking muck with decomposing carcasses of the unburied dead. His clothes, unchanged in a month, were glued to his skin and he knew they were rotting. He and his buddy huddled back-to-back at night in a foxhole reeking of puke and crawling with insects. His buddy took a bullet just beneath his helmet and died without a whimper.
Sugar Loaf Hill was supposed to be a cinch. But it was a trap. Enemy troops and civilians had carved out an endless maze of caves and tunnels from where they shot continual rounds of machine gun fire. They had to be blasted out of their positions one by one.
Leo had his orders. Clear out this nest of Japanese and the next one and the next one and claim this Godforsaken hill. Again.
He inched forward on his belly, dragging himself on his knees and elbows through slimy mud mixed with gore and maggots. He raised his rifle, squinted through the rain and took aim where he saw the machine gun flash.
But just as he pulled the trigger, a searing hot pain pierced his head and he was blasted onto his back. He couldn’t move. And something was terribly wrong with the left side of his face.
He heard his own voice screaming as he shivered so hard, he thought his bones would shatter. He imagined he saw his father’s face. “I’m hurt, Papa. Hurt bad. I don’t know if the medics will even find me here.”
It was 8 hours before the medics found him. His first medical entry reads, “Left eye appears destroyed. Frontal sinus noted to be open. Much headaches. No vomiting. Was unconscious for about 8 hours after injury. Diagnosis: 1. Laceration of scalp, frontal, left. 2. Fracture, skull, frontal, orbital, incurred in action against the enemy on Okinawa when an enemy shell burst nearby and he was struck by fragments.”
He was sent to General Hospital in Saipan via Air Evac., where doctors tried and failed to remove all of the shrapnel in his left eye and skull. He was flown to the US Naval Hospital, in Oakland, California.
Over the next year and a half, Leo underwent 7 surgeries before he could be fitted for a prosthetic eye, which never fit properly, was the wrong eye color, and which he replaced with his own white bandage as an eye patch, giving him the appearance of a “good” pirate.
He was awarded the Purple Heart and his Marine Unit received a letter of commendation.
In September, 1946, he returned home to Amada.
But he wasn’t the happy jokester he’d been before the War. Feeling self-conscious about his missing eye and skull depression, he tried to lay low. His cousins, however, strong-armed him into “chaperoning” them at a county dance, where he met the love of his life, Gina. His sense of humor returned and he began to recall his earlier plans to be a husband and a father.
Leo and Gina were married in January, 1947. He wore dark glasses to hide his eye patch. They moved into their own home near the long-established family homesteads along the river.
Their first son was born one year later. Then came a daughter. After ten miscarriages (Gina battled rheumatoid arthritis), another son held on and made his entrance into this world. Then came another daughter. Leo was on permanent disability, but he loved being productive. So he continually volunteered, mostly at his church, doing light construction work and repairs.
Things weren’t perfect. He had episodic, severe grand mal seizures, requiring him to be helicoptered to the nearest city hospital. It also turned out that he had poor eyesight in his remaining eye.
But shooting was a necessary skill in Amada, if they wanted meat for their families. So the men held target practice on a regular basis. Shooting at tin can bulls-eyes, they would miss, laughing and shaking their heads. But to their astonishment, Leo hit the target, almost every time. “Just plain lucky,” they would declare, giving him good-natured back slaps as they all headed for the saloon.
The family frequently visited Gina’s family who lived 25 miles up the mountains on a muddy, washboard logging road that hugged the side of steep cliffs. He insisted on driving, but Gina fervently prayed the rosary the whole way, insisting that the four kids in the back seat do the same.
No one could understand how he managed to see well enough to drive.
Leo passed away at age 51 due to medical complications. The signatures of 263 mourners in his Funeral Memorial book testify to how beloved he was.
His oldest son mused, “He was a simple man. A simple guy. As sick as he was, he felt happy. He was happy. We knew he was gonna die. We were expecting it. But when it happened, it just shocked the hell out of us. Because when he was lying in the coffin there, he had this little – not much – but you knew when he was telling the truth or joking – he told the best jokes, just made them up himself - and he had that little joking smile. I kept thinking, ‘He’s not dead, it’s a joke. He’ll wake up and come home with us.’”
Just a simple guy. These everyday heroes abound, often behind the scenes and unacknowledged. I believe they are miracles in action. What do you think?
**Names of people and places are changed to protect family privacy. Parts of this story are adapted from my forthcoming novel, “Timeless, Sacred, Beloved.”