John (Bobby) Wharton

August 6, 1956 – March 8, 2006

Bobby was my friend. I have no idea why or how that friendship developed or worked. Our friendship developed around, and almost always revolved around, the Church.

After going to church together for a couple years, one day, out of the blue, Bobby insisted on getting baptized. “I want to go to communion”. I told him that being Orthodox was a big deal, and sometimes hard to do, but he insisted. So on a hot July day in 1997, Bobby was baptized with the name “John”. Seeing him baptized and going to communion were very special moments.  He kept his Faith until the end. His very last words to me as I was leaving him in the nursing home on Tuesday were “I’ll pray for you”.  And with that, he made a big sign of the cross.

He wasn’t very sound theologically.  You might even say that he was sometimes on shaky ground there. I remember once when I badgered him into visiting his family.  His brother and both of his sisters were together with his mother Daisy.  Being all devout Baptists, they asked him if he was Baptist.  “Yes maam”, said he, “Saint John the Baptist Orthodox Church is where I go”. They were happy. Who was I to argue?

In his last years, living on K Street, he was only a block or two away from the Baptist Church where he grew up. He loved telling stories about being a little kid in that church. But St. John’s was always his home. When we started the little mission, Bobby turned down the offer to go with me every Sunday. “Saint John’s is where I want to go to Church” he said. He always asked after Father George and M. Deborah, and cheerfully joined me when I felt up to taking him to Church at Holy Apostles. But St. John’s was his home.

Some years ago Fr. Victor organized an outing to clean up the Orthodox cemetery in Rock Creek cemetery. Father Victor explained to us that all of the people resting there (with the strange Russian inscriptions on their grave stones) were really our ancestors in the Faith.  Bobby really enjoyed that day!  So much so, that we went together for several more years to pull a few weeds. Every time we visited he reminded me that these people are our family. As it happens, Bobby once worked as a groundskeeper in that very cemetery. Thanks to the generosity of the parish, John Wharton will be at home there with our ancestors.

He was never good with names, but he always had some story or other to tell me about people in church. He especially told me about the babies born to the Johnsons and to the Hintons. In the hospital recently, Deacon John gave him a cross. Bobby was really fond of that. In his last days in the nursing home, the Lords gave him several pairs of socks. When I visited him the day before he died, he was proudly wearing, not one, but two pairs of socks! “Don’t they look nice Christopher?”

He loved going with me to the (sometimes) Orthodox book store on Quincy Street. One day he noticed a picture of Jack Hinton on the wall there. “That guy is always nice to me” said Bobby. There was a comfortable chair in the downstairs part of the bookshop. Bobby used to head for that chair and sit peacefully waiting for me to finish browsing. He usually left with a small icon to take back to his group home and, usually, give away.

“Can you help me out?” I’m sure we’ve all heard that a thousand times. Bobby was an exasperating friend. But he gave me a lot more than I ever gave him. I used to get really irritated with him because he always seemed to ask for money. One day he started asking for money as soon as I picked him up for church. Making sure that he really didn’t have any money, I gave him a few dollars. My irritation doubled when the Gospel for the day was about the Widow and her two mites. I berated him after Church for never even putting any money into the collection basket.  Feeling smug and satisfied with myself for having taught him a lesson about Christian charity, I stopped at a little bodega and demanded that he buy me a coke. Waiting in the car, I noticed that when he came out, he struck up a conversation with a street person (who looked a whole lot healthier than Bobby did). After a minute or two Bobby gave this person some money. When he got back into the car, I demanded to know why he gave that person money. “Because he needed it” was Bobby’s answer.  “Well, how much did you give him?” said I. “All of it” said Bobby.

Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:   For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living.

He did that sort of thing a lot to me. Since he didn’t have any teeth (he lost them years ago when he got struck by lightening), there were a lot of things he couldn’t eat. On our way home from church we usually stopped at the store so he could shop for groceries. He always shopped first for the others in his group home – even to buying them peanuts and hard candy because he knew they liked those things. Even in his last days in the nursing home his generosity showed itself. Visiting him in the nursing home I noticed that he was missing almost all of his pairs of pants. He had given them away to “some guy upstairs who didn’t have any”.

On balance, I don’t think anything we ever gave to Bobby went to waste – and he gave us a lot in return.  He loved us all – with the unconditional love that only children have with their parents. We are all his family. He was our child.

Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 

Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.

February 27 / March 12, 2006

Sunday of Orthodoxy

Dear beloved brother in Christ Christopher,

            Your dear godson, John (Bobby) Wharton, reposed in the Lord, February 23 / March 8, 2006, on Clean Wednesday.  His funeral is to be on the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.  You asked John’s brothers and sisters in Christ to collect their thoughts and memories of him that they would like to share.  Here are mine.

Memories - three prayer books

            Bobby came to St. John’s asking for money.  He was disabled as a result of having been a drug abuser.  He had no teeth and walked with a limp.  We gave him a Jordanville prayer book, and told him that although he thought he was only looking for money, our holy Faith has a spiritual treasure to offer him, riches beyond compare.  I suggested that he begin reading the morning and evening prayers from the book.  After that I often asked him “Are you saying your prayers?”  He would dutifully say: “Yes.”  Until one day, he said that his prayer book had been stolen.  So we gave him another one.

            When Fr. George and several of us went to the hospital to give John Holy Unction, I found that he had lost the second prayer book, so I asked Deacon John to take a third one to him in the nursing home.  That was the last one.

            Everyone who was at the Holy Unction service was very moved.  John was in tears almost continually throughout the service.

Conversation with Fr. Macarius from Optina
Meeting of the Lord, 1996, (just over ten years ago)

            First, Fr. Macarius told me some things which will be known only by the Lord for awhile longer.  Then he said, “Bring people to the Church.  Bring criminals to the Church.”  He then said, “What would you like to ask me?”  I had made a list of things that I dearly wanted to ask, but at the last minute was moved instead to replace that list with a question about Bobby Wharton, so I asked the elder what to do about Bobby.  I described him a little, and Fr. Macarius said, “He should be baptized.  He should be given an Orthodox name, not according to his will, but according to the priest who baptizes him.  He should be given the name John (Ioann) after St. John Maximovich.  St. John will give him the help he needs.”  Fr. George baptized him in July of 1997, with the name John.

Sunday of Orthodoxy
The day of John’s funeral

            Your godson John reposed during Clean Week.  Fr. Nicholas (Pekatoras) of blessed memory also reposed during Clean Week.  The day of John’s funeral is the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy.  The Orthodox funeral service itself is a reflection of the triumph of the Lord’s Resurrection over the enemy of our salvation.  Our dear John’s repose was the Christian ending that we pray for.

            St. John Maximovich truly did give John the help he needed in the person of a most wonderful godfather, Christopher.  You nursed him through his last days, but you did more than that for him.  You took care, of him and for him, year in and year out, showing him the Lord’s compassion and mercy, for a whole decade.  You and Karen had him over to your home many times where he shared meals with you. You even opened your home to him for your Thanksgiving meal, at a time when many families enclose themselves in the warmth of family love.  You and Karen shared that love with him.  You gave him money, yes, but more than that, you did not avert your eyes from him.  You did not recoil from his open sores, from the wretchedness of his life.  You gave him your time, time and time again.  You answered the phone when he would call you repeatedly at home.  You became his advocate in the medical system.  You visited him in the hospital and arranged for the move to the nursing home where he spent the last 10 days of his life, and where he was happy.   “When I was sick, you visited Me.”

With love in Christ,

your unworthy sister, Deborah

Once within, within for evermore:
There the long beatitudes begin:
Overflows the still unwasting store,
Once within.

Left without are death and doubt and sin;
All man wrestled with and all he bore,
Man who saved his life, skin after skin.

Blow the trumpet-blast unheard before,
Shout the unheard-of-shout for these who win,
These, who cast their crowns on Heaven’s high floor
Once within.

Christina Rossetti