Back in high school, I wasn't what was considered a raving beauty, nor one of the popular students in my high school. I dealt with a horribly destructive low self-esteem. Few realized it. I learned early on to put on a mask that hid the real me.The "S.F.U. Club -- was for us who were Short Fat & Ugly" -- yeah, really uplifting, huh?
Wayyyyyyyy back in 1976, one of the popular kids did something he didn't do for everyone and that made a mark on me that has lasted until this day. He was an extremely talented guy, with a wit that made a razor seem dull. In everyone's yearbook, he would quickly sit down and draw a caricature of how he saw that person, usually in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. Well, it WAS caricature!
Rich Willis didn't do that in mine. He took it for a period of classes, then told me he needed to take it home in order to do mine. Okay. The next day, I was amazed at the page he had written, because it was like he'd seen inside my soul and given me encouragement I didn't think he could possibly know that I needed.
I recently was doing a search on Facebook of former students of Osceola High School in Kissimmee, Florida. (Go Kowboys!) and saw "Rich Willis." I had to check and see if that was the one I knew, so I contacted him. I can't say the joy it has given me to be able to tell him what that goofy page in a yearbook has meant to me.
Just last night, I learned that he is battling cancer -- "nah, I'm messing with its mind." Being the upbeat, witty guy that he is, he has been writing a cancerblog sharing the things he's been going through -- covering everything from a colonoscopy to surgery to hair issues to chemotherapy -- and all with a sense of grace and humility one doesn't often see.
Thank you, Rich Willis for being who God made you to be, both back in 1976 and now. You rock!
