Thank you for your concern about my getting a new heart. I really am eager for them to call me up and tell me to get to the hospital right away. At the same time I am full of fear and anxiety. It is a hell of a way to live for an extended period of time. I find that the best way is to get busy reading, going to movies, or even coming down here to the fisheries and working for a day or so at my princely salary of $8.50 an hour.

The above is an excerpt from a letter my godfather, Bob Caplinger, wrote to my parents on May 26, 1992. He needed a heart transplant. He was on “the list.”

Bob died four months later. He was 64.

To my knowledge, I only met Bob three times.

This first time, I don’t remember:

Grandma Cassidy, who helped Mom with her three-under-three babies that spring, wrote on the back of this photo: Paula was baptized in this church. This is the “Purple Church” I go to – only three minutes away from Joan’s. The priests’ house is next door and next to it, is the Catholic school.

I’m fairly certain that Dad and Bob Caplinger met while training in employee relations at General Electric. This was the only time they lived and worked near each other, but their friendship endured.

The second time I met Bob (and the first that I remember) was in 1973. We were getting ready to move to Indiana from Connecticut. I’m guessing he was on a business trip in the region, so he stopped by. Before he left, he handed me money (may have been $10, I don’t remember) and said, “Buy yourself a case of beer!” when I tried to give it back. I was 15 at the time and thought my godfather was a bit of a nut. A very likeable nut.

Bob like to refer to himself as a “West Virginia hillbilly.”

Bob was born in the West Virginia town of Elkins in 1928. He is buried there.

In 1981, Bob discovered he had a talent for pen and ink.

He sent me a set of his Appalachian-inspired drawings. They will always hang in our home.

The next year, I invited Bob to our wedding – and he accepted. By now he was living in Houston, Texas, and working for Raymond International.

My godfather dusted off his tux and flew to Indiana:

Bob wrote to my parents a few weeks later:

It was an experience. I have two Godsons but only one Goddaughter. It was moving. It was sort of like a weekend retreat.

Returning to Bob’s 1992 letter to my parents, he remarked that Mom’s The Lord to Lazarus poem resonated with him.

Here’s that poem:

The Lord to Lazarus

Your home is my oasis
the pillow of your friendship brings me peace
you who ask nothing of me
offer your welcome like a flowing stream

they forget I am a man
I weary I thirst I am lonely
but not in your house Lazarus
not in the flower of your friendship
you make me laugh    I make you weep
and it is all the same
we two can sit together     talk all night
or say no word
you bring me rest     renew my life
I tell you I’m afraid Lazarus
and you are brave for me
when I am worn your strength revives me

tell no one this my friend
but one day I will bring you back to life
as you have raised me daily with your own

~ joan vayo ~ April 16, 1992

Here’s what Bob wrote in return:

I think we too often forget that Jesus was first and foremost a man and his parents and relatives and friends were all common folk.

What would you do or say if your name was Elizabeth and your cousin told you she was coming to visit you and she was planning to spend four months? How would you react to your own husband and to your cousin when you saw her? What would you do?

What would you do if your name was Joseph and your wife had just told you that she was going to visit her cousin for four months. You are a simple soul, a carpenter. You wonder who would clean your house and make your meals, go shopping, wash your clothes? What would you do? What would you say?

What would you do or say if you were a fisherman and a young man with wild eyes, who condemns the status quo asks you to follow him? Very few people like him. The invaders and occupiers of your country don’t. The leaders of your religion don’t. He is a threat to the status quo. He preaches anarchy. He causes a big stir in the synagogue on one of the busiest Sabbaths in the year.

What would you do if you learned this unsavory young man and his cousin who wears skins from wild animals and eats only bugs and berries were preaching out in the middle of the desert? You hear the risk of all people around being arrested is high.

Would you go?

What would you do if this man asked you to come with him to a garden on a Thursday night and stay awake and pray with him while he waits to be arrested? Would you go? Would you stay awake?

This man is a lot easier to follow 2,000 years later than he was to follow when he was alive. I think because we have dehumanized him. What do you think?

---

“The Lord to Lazarus” © 1992 Joan Vayo. All rights reserved.
“Mountain Memories” artwork © 1981 Robert M. Caplinger. All rights reserved.

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