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23
In Memory of George Swearingen
GEORGE
Last Sunday when I got to church George gave me a hug, like he has pretty much every Sunday since I've known him, which is getting close to seven years now. When we left, we 
said, "See you next Sunday!", like we did pretty much every Sunday since I've known him. As it turns out, that's not going to happen, after all.
My buddy, Ron, and I were talking about it when we heard the news. "There aren't a lot of people I admire," he said, "but George was one of them." I get that.
I read his obituary this afternoon. I don't know who wrote it, but it began with the usual information one is forced, through tears, to put on a piece of paper when this day comes, followed by the "about" memories. I knew the facts the writer included and they drew a clear and happy picture of George in my mind: God, family, farming, hunting, woodworking, and making homemade ice cream. But, more than that, I read in it the love the writer had for George. He was an easy guy to love.
There are a lot of things that stand out for me about George.
He welcomed me from the beginning. I mean, really welcomed. He brought me in and treated me the same as he did everybody else, never afraid to give me a hard time, which I quite like in a person. He had a way of looking at me out of the corner of his eye and, with a little grin, shaking his head at me as if to say, "I just don't know about you, girl."
A year or two ago, while in the hospital, he nearly died. He credited the Lord, and a burly male nurse who was quick to respond, for saving his life. People talk about "living on borrowed time." George kept on living with a gift of time, and he knew it. It made a lasting change in him. I think it renewed him; gave him a fresh sense of love and life and God. He sang louder in church after that. And he didn't care who heard it.
You know, right before Jesus died, after having shared his last meal with his friends, he got a wash basin and a rag, got down on his hands and knees, and washed their feet like a servant, a slave even. His disciples were utterly horrified. But Jesus told them they should do the same for each other. It was an unspeakably humbling metaphor for serving one another with unpretentious love and humility.
That's one of the things I remember most about George.
I'd been living here in West Virginia for seven months, in a rental house rampant with roaches. No friends, no family, save the folks at Mt. Zion church. I found a new home, but didn't have the money to rent a moving a truck or hire help. George and crew showed up at my door with a fleet of farm pickups, loaded me up, and moved me across town. I remember that day well. I walked into the kitchen, and there was George – a 70-something-year-old man who barely knew me – on his hands and knees, cleaning out the bottom of my admittedly fairly disgusting refrigerator. I was mortified. But George acted like it was as natural as talking about the weather. There on my kitchen floor, he was a living demonstration of that unpretentious love and humility Jesus was talking about when he said we should wash one another's feet.
I'll never forget it.
I wish I'd been around longer to share in more of the happy memories his family will treasure until we all meet again. But I have a few of my own, and I carry them with me.
Rest in joy and peace, brother. Thank you for everything. I'll see you again.
"When He had washed their feet, and taken His garments, and resumed His place at the table, He said to them, '
Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am.
If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also out to wash one another's feet.
For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have to you.'" --Jesus (John 13:12:-15)
George Wesley Swearingen
November 24, 1936 - February 22, 2019
Fairmont, West Virginia
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