Death of Another Salesman

"....And they say you don't tug on Superman's cape; You don't spit into the wind; You don't pull the mask off an 'ole Lone Ranger, And you don't mess around with Jim...." Jim Croce, 1972

Mark and I went to a funeral on Thursday morning. He has a weekly early-morning business networking group in Arvada, and all the other members are women in their mid to late '50's. One of them just lost her husband after he battled lymphoma for two years. His final weeks were excruciating. They had been married for 38 years. He didn't have any life insurance.

We thought we were late for the funeral after battling I-25 traffic long after the commute would have explained it. But, we actually arrived in the middle of the Rosary. Well, I think it was the middle. We're not Catholic, but I've been to enough Catholic funerals to know that wasn't the funeral. Yet.

So, it was good to be early. But, it was concerning that the funeral was starting later, because Mark's other weekly business networking meeting is at Noon on Thursdays. That meant we had to leave by 11:30 to get back through Denver traffic. We had no choice. He had been asked to speak that day about his agency. He was going to talk about life insurance. The script had now been written for him...."I just came from a funeral. A colleague of mine has lost her husband, and he left her with no life insurance." I told him we would just have to stand up and go at the appointed time, even if the funeral had not ended. Of course, he could think of many reasons not to do that.

I met Mark's colleague for the first time on Thursday, and I never knew her husband, Danny. Neither did Mark. I was trying to get a sense of who he had been during the eulogy, given by one of his sales partners. But, the man had decided to rely upon what he thought was his natural gift for gab and only prepared a few bullet points about Danny on an index card. He had difficulty holding onto it. After he picked it off the floor for the third time and concluded his rambling thoughts, my mind drifted to another salesman. A man I really knew. The person who gave me the greatest gift anyone in my business life has ever given me.

I attended his funeral, too, in 1999. He had succumbed to a characteristically brief battle with pancreatic cancer. Another Catholic service, in Pleasanton, California. His oldest daughter, headed to Law School, gave a brave and compassionate eulogy. His name was Jim.

He had been asked to leave the company just a few months before his death. I had watched his disgrace, knowing fully that it had come by his own hand. He was from some sort of old school, where the lines between humor and decency were blurred and harassment laws had not yet been invented. Witnessing his horror and self-loathing at ultimately realizing what he had done, when he had meant something so innocently far-removed, was almost as difficult as watching his physical suffering from the unrelenting disease.

Although we can never know conclusively, it seemed at the time that this disease was always scheduled to visit Jim by his own hand as well. When he hired me to run marketing, he gave over an enormous executive office to me with a balcony. It had been known previously as the "Smoking Balcony." Jim was a chain smoker. Even though this balcony was completely open to the outside air and furnished with large and highly-scented potted rosemary plants, I don't believe the lingering tobacco aroma dissipated until I had been there about a year.

Jim was an even more dedicated drinker. He ate lots of saturated fat, didn't get enough sleep, and didn't understand why I didn't approve of his penchant to hold spontaneous tactical meetings at a local Walnut Creek bar in the middle of the afternoon. And, why I wouldn't participate.

But, he was the walking embodiment of what it meant to be a salesman. He said he needed me because he didn't know anything about brand marketing and all that goes with it. Regardless, his instincts about it were uniquely fine-tuned. It seemed to me that what he really needed was another Champion for his thoughts, a separate voice with the national brand credentials to point to him and call him right.

He was right. That particular business continues to thrive and grow a decade later in a tiny part of the western United States that I refused to move to when someone decided to exit California as executive office space. No one in my eight-member group would move there either. But, the importance of that division to the corporation today is complete witness to the veracity of the strategy. The one where Jim stood firmly at the center. All the people who have earned a penny from that business unit in the past ten years fully owe their success to Jim.

I had worked for him only a few months. My group was still in start-up stage in a division that was still on life-support. That's why we were all there. The night before, I had returned home from the grocery store to find my husband deep in thought after a conversation with his mother. Another salesman had entered the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio -- an incredible place of life-saving miracles. Just as true, many people went there as a place of last resort. But, this salesman, my father-in-law, had been there many times and had beaten the odds with cancer for 16 years. Even though he had lost a lung to cancer (unlike Jim, he never smoked a day in his life), some of his family members and friends never gave this new development a second thought. They just assumed he would beat it -- again.

He had driven himself to Cleveland Clinic this time. Mark heard something different in his mother's voice this time. He wondered what he should do. I heard myself say to him, "you need to stand up right now and go." Shannon was nine years old, it was March, and she was in school. Meredith was about to turn four in a few days, and I worked full time for Jim. But, I trusted Mark's instincts and told him he should take Shannon with him. She was a Gifted & Talented student who would catch up a few days of missed work....

Overnight, we had heard more discouraging news from Cleveland. Mark left early that morning with Shannon for Cleveland, and I went to the office. It seemed like he had been in Cleveland ten minutes -- maybe -- and he was on the phone to me again. He said "this is it." He was sure of it. Fear and dread coursed through my bloodstream. What were we going to do??? I couldn't take off work for a funeral -- not right now. Maybe it wouldn't happen.....

Another hour went by. Another phone call from Mark. "You need to come quickly, and bring Meredith." After I hung up and felt my knees buckle, I was observed by Jim to be just sitting. Slumped, at Jim's former desk, in his former, enormous office. I motioned him in, and he saw my pale face and blank expression. Of course, there was no way to not tell him. I thought he would express his sympathy, and I would get back to work somehow. But, I discovered I didn't know the real Jim very well.

He said, "...you need to stand up right now and go. Go take care of your family."

Naturally, I protested that there was no way I could do that. No way I would leave my beloved group members to fend for themselves. He reminded me that they were there because they were more than capable of covering everything for me. I reminded him about the important, upcoming Division meeting. I was expecting to be indispensible for it. He told me again that I needed to take care of my family. He said I would never regret it. The salesman made it clear that there would be no messin' around with Jim on this one.

I stood up from my desk and left the office. I went to United Airlines in Walnut Creek and bought tickets for me and Meredith on the next flight to Cleveland from Oakland -- the redeye that would stop in Detroit. I sat up all night on two planes, watching a little girl try to sleep. She had been named after my father-in-law's oldest brother. He had died of a brain tumor at 50, which happened to be Jim's age on that night.

I left voicemail messages for Jim every day of the 17 days I was away. He only replied twice -- the first time was to the first one. He said that he didn't need to know anything about it and would see me when I got back. When I got back, so much time had passed. In the business sense. The position of a pregnant group member was now covered by my dear friend from Del Monte, who had been set up as consultant during her absence. I had missed the baby shower. Meredith was now four years old. We had had a little party for her in Papa D.'s room the night before he really began to slip into the final days. Meredith and I had been in Cleveland for just a few hours. It was the last time Papa D. was really Papa D.

I had spent the last week of my father-in-law's life in the Cleveland Clinic. Meredith had been diagnosed during that time with the croup. She and I had been almost lost in a plane crash when our connecting flight from Kansas City to Wichita was involved in a torrential rain storm. We seemed inches from the ground, when I felt the small craft being pulled back into the heavens to safety. By the same Hand that took Meredith's grandpa from his coma into the light early the next morning. Our family of four had been reunited in Papa D.'s house. I was there with Mark after that final phone call, to wake up Shannon together and tell her that Papa D. was gone.

Two time zones behind us, Jim wasn't even awake yet. But, I left him the voicemail message anyway. I had been gone a week already. Now, we had a funeral to plan. His second response came to this message. "Take care of your family."

Last summer, Mark got a surprise message from Cathy -- a woman in that same time zone. She told Mark that her husband -- one of his best friends from northern California and fellow Trojan alum -- was at the end of an incredibly shocking cancer battle. It was going to take him, and it might be a matter of hours. He hadn't wanted anyone to know. But, she had to tell Mark now. I heard the words again, coming out of my mouth.

"You need to stand up right now and go." Meredith stood up and went with him.