Remembering Pat Ruelle

Five years later…

I missed the Sunday service the day Pat and his wife first visited our church, but my wife came home and told me she had met a man she thought I would find interesting. She went so far as to say he and I were alike. Since I had never met anyone who was quite like me I thought it was unlikely that I would find this stranger to be remarkable. I assumed he would be nice but would not be compelling. I was never more wrong about anything in my life.

When the service ended the following Sunday, I took the most direct route to the front of the church where Pat and his family had sat, along with an entourage of friends he had dragged along. He was all smiles as he hugged those he knew and greeted those he didn’t. He turned to shake my hand and introduce himself. Instantaneously there was something about him that drew me in. I liked him immediately, and the thought crossed my mind that he and I were probably alike in many ways.

There was much about Pat’s early life that I either didn’t know or didn’t understand. He grew up in North Dakota and had nearly an inborn proclivity for the vastness of the open country. His upbringing was rural agrarian and in that space he adopted the ethic that work was essential to produce the discipline needed for success. He worked diligently his entire life moving readily from one business venture to another. Some undertakings were profitable and others were not, but for him they were all worthwhile in effectuating the mindset that in Christ he could do all things necessary to find goodness in life.

He was unpretentious. His down-to-earth demeanor permeated everything about him – how he walked and talked, how he shook your hand, how he shared the Gospel. He was naturally modest when he considered his talents and his potential for the future. He knew his limitations and wasn’t averse to revealing them. He loved his grandfather more than any other man in his life, and considered him to be the wisest man he’d ever known even though he had only finished the eighth grade. Perhaps the simplicity of this man’s approach to living convinced Pat he didn’t need the trappings of a feigned life to be happy.

He was generous. It didn’t matter what you needed or when you needed it. Pat was there with the means to fix anything. He opened his home to the wayward and homeless. He opened his wallet to the hungry and needy. He gave of himself without regard to cost even to his own detriment. When it came to supplying the needs of those God brought to his door, Pat was not inclined to give a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter. His giving was extravagant. He’d provide far more than what was expected. If you needed clothes he bought new, not used from a thrift store. If you needed a Bible he bought leather-bound, not some paperback edition. If you needed a friend or someone to talk to, he offered himself.

He was sympathetic. No one who’s down wants to be told by those who aren’t that they’re down and it’s their own fault for being where they are. Pat didn’t have much time for judging the obvious. He was more interested in resolving and repairing. This didn’t mean he was a pushover. On the contrary, he knew how to be firm and cutting, but his tactic to get to the core of problems was so enveloped in care and gentleness that the recipient of his firmness usually welcomed whatever pain was deserving. The assault on troubles can be agonizing for the broken, but that does not mean the healer’s intention is less than genuine love. That was the case with Pat.

He was cultured. Pat enjoyed the finest things he could afford. He wore well-made suits and fashionable ties. He drove good cars and owned nice homes. He knew how to hunt and fish. He traveled well. He was well-informed on current events. He was well-read in politics, philosophy, and theology. He was so well-versed in a wide range of topics that he could engage anyone on anything for any length of time. In this sense he was an enlightened man unlike anyone else I had ever known. Grounded in his faith and steady in his worldview, he was exceptionally equipped to confront cultural intransigence regarding human depravity, immorality, or relativism.

Finally, he was a man of unqualified integrity. When it came to right and wrong Pat never listed from side to side as though he were unsure of himself or somehow unanchored from reality. He didn’t veer from the hard right when the easy wrong was just within reach. His conscience was as clean and clear as any I’d ever seen. Of course, he made mistakes like anyone else but he was undaunted when it came to rectifying his errors. He never resisted the truth about himself or about anyone else.

Our deepest attachment came from our shared admiration for nineteenth-century revivalist Charles Finney and his theology. Then we were both evangelical in our faith and conservative Republican in our politics. We were both free-market economists, but I admit I was more socially libertarian than he. We both stayed current in world affairs and preferred meaty conversation over mindless chatting. We shared so many positions and interests that he seemed more like a twin brother than a friend.

Over time Pat’s social and business circles expanded above and beyond my own. We no longer went to the same church. Our conversations were few and our times together were fewer. He was a prominent player in his field and our fields did not intersect. We drifted apart. And then Matt’s injury occurred.

Within days of the injury Pat was at our house with an envelope full of cash to help us with food and gas. He brought a Tonka truck for Matt to have in his room once he awakened from his coma. (Years later we gave the unused truck to a young boy who had been praying for Matt every night before he went to bed.) He didn’t offer any platitudes about God or divine healing. He knew the situation was bleak and he didn’t need to say or do anything to make reality less real.

By the time we moved Matt home, Pat and his family had moved to Kansas City. I seldom saw him after that. A couple of dinners here and there, a cup of coffee, a quick visit and that was the extent of our interaction. As time passed Pat revealed he had an operable brain tumor. His surgery was successful and he couldn’t stop boasting about the incredible fact that he had lost a sizeable chunk of his brain without experiencing any cognitive decline. He wondered how much more of his brain could be lost without becoming mentally deficient.

Unfortunately, the cancer returned and Pat needed more surgery. He called me the day before his surgery was scheduled. I was putting my son to bed for dinner and couldn’t talk. I told him I’d call him the next day but it slipped my mind. A month later I learned he was hospitalized and was not expected to live through the day. He died four hours later.

I’ll call you tomorrow were the last words I spoke to my good friend, but that day never arrived. Living only in the moment, I thought I had all the time in the world to reconnect with Pat. The day he died I wrote the following on his Facebook page.

My best friend for many years now walks with Christ in glory. He was my soulmate in ways he never knew. He was daring and confident. He was compelling and motivating. He was a fist in the chest, but with a smile and a laugh and an uncommon tenderness. He was fearless, like a cliff jumper, but he wasn’t reckless. He was a renaissance of his own making, engaged in so many tangents of what it meant to be a man. The years got away from me. I didn’t take the time to tell him his life had chiseled my own.