Archives for category: peculiar people
Harold L. Thompson, 64, of Jaffrey NH, has gone Home to be with the Lord for about a week now and I realize my life will never be quite the same again. My loss is God’s gain, or something like that.
Granted, I’m fully aware that according to the Bible, none of us are guaranteed to see tomorrow. So, I was not only truly blessed to have known Harold, but also have had Harold as a true “Friend”. And since I never had a biological brother, I sort of viewed him as my “surrogate” brother. Although now, more accurately, I think of Harold as, “my brother in Christ.”
Our mothers were both good friends in Dracut MA, and our families resided about a quarter mile from each other. Harold and I were both born in May ’57, and I happen to be about three weeks older than him. When I was about 11, my family relocated to another section of Dracut several miles away, and 1-2 years later Harold’s family moved to nearby Lowell but we still stayed in touch. If you notice in the attached Obituary, Harold last worked at a Postal Service processing plant in Nashua NH for more than 20 years. About the last four years of my Postal Service career, I worked at that same facility on the same shift as Harold. Then after December 2019, I decided to retire from the Postal Service while Harold, I assume, was going to try and retire with his full pension but God apparently had other plans.
One thing I always admired and respected about Harold and his family was their love for God and His Word. Looking back at my life, I never prayed the Salvation Prayer (found in, Romans 10:9-10), which is basically asking Jesus Christ into your life to forgive you of your Sins and then become like your personal Lord and Savior so you can spend all eternity with Him in Heaven — Incidentally, this is what Christians often refer to as being “Born Again”, “Saved”, and/or “Salvation”. Although I never prayed anything even remotely similar to that around Harold before I graduated high school, I did soon afterwards during my stint in the Air Force while serving my first assignment in Abilene TX. I guess I felt a lot more comfortable with my parents not around me, and I just had a strong desire to explore what Christianity was all about via most of the church visits I experienced with Harold and his family.
I didn’t think Harold would ever become a Minister, or anything like that, but he did seem to want to do a job which he could make a lot of money via working a lot of hours — such as all the overtime availability at the Postal facility. It had sort of become like his life’s purpose. For example, he did tell me fairly recently that he managed to gross more than six figures in a calendar year — that is very doable at that particular Postal facility for anyone willing to work the available overtime hours, especially during the Christmas season.
But what good is having that amount of money in the bank doing Harold now? He could’ve afforded going on a Single’s cruise, taken a Bible-land tour to Israel, rented a cottage on the beach for a week, or probably a number of other different things. It’s my understanding that Harold had quite a bit of vacation time accumulated with the Postal Service which he rarely used because he planned to cash all that in upon retirement — a retirement he obviously now will never experience. Aside from spending time socializing with family and friends during birthdays or special holiday events, Harold just about devoted his life to working overtime in mostly manual labor type jobs.
Personality-wise, Harold had a great outlook on life. From birth, he always had a weight problem, which he never could remedy. He never had a temper or got too emotional. Harold never played or followed sports, which might’ve contributed to his life-long weight problem. He enjoyed talking about politics (mostly Republican), current events, family issues, and great memories from the past. Harold loved to joke with people and keep his conversations with people very upbeat and positive. He was always very helpful, protective, and would offer advice whenever he could. I rarely, if ever, heard Harold blurt out a vulgarity and I would attribute that to his Christian upbringing.
Harold wasn’t exactly the most politically-correct person in the world, and he was perfectly okay with that. If Harold was attending somebody’s Wake or some type of formal social event, he’d probably wear the same maintenance outfit he’d wear to his Postal job and it was really no big deal because he had a knack of being able to literally light up a room with just his presence. If Harold owned a suit and tie, he must’ve kept it well hidden.
When Harold was a kid, he experienced a disease called Epilepsy, which would cause him sometimes to go into seizures and lose consciousness. I remember one time when we both attended an elementary school in Dracut, somebody called the Ambulance after one of his seizures because nobody really knew what to do. One of the individuals who witnessed that seizure, claimed Harold had swallowed his tongue, but Harold vehemently denied that ever happened. So anywho, when Harold and I were both about 50-something and I hadn’t heard from him in quite awhile, I called him just to catch up on what was going on in our lives since then. I brought up the subject of his Epilepsy and specifically asked if he experienced any more seizures as he did when he was younger. Then he responded and said, “well, I don’t know how to better say this other than God healed me from Epilepsy.”
Apparently, Harold ran into a situation years earlier, which he had some stress that gradually turned into another seizure. He told me that he sort of prayed an ultimatum to God that if He wanted to take him home (Heaven), at that point, then take him home but he refused to take any more medication for his Epilepsy. Call it a Miracle if you will, but immediately after that ultimatum prayer to God, Harold never had a seizure after that, and the doctors couldn’t find any traces of Epilepsy in his brain or body — all AFTER simply going off his prescribed medication, a.k.a. ‘Cold Turkey’. I can only assume that God must’ve realized that it was just way too early to “call Harold home” at that point in time.
Getting back to Harold’s personality, there are a number of adjectives that God uses to describe His faithful supporters. In the Biblical verses of Deuteronomy 14:2 and 1 Peter 2:9 , God refers to His followers as “peculiar” people. Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake about it, Harold Thompson was DEFINITELY one unique and “peculiar” individual.
I mentioned earlier that Harold never really had an interest in following or playing sports. Since the fairly recent turn of the 20th century, Boston sort of became the “Mecca” of professional sports championships for the USA. It seemed like most New England area guys (and sometimes ladies) working in manual labor type jobs loved to wear shirts and hats promoting either: Red Sox, Celtics, Bruins or Patriots — but Harold, however, was never really a part of that clique.
Also, since about the turn of the century, Americans started setting up and subscribing to the Internet as a much more modern source of News and Information — but not Harold, he never bothered investing in a computer and thus he never subscribed to the Internet. He never subscribed to a cell phone service either but he did purchase a few disposable cell phones sold in convenient stores, just in case he had a vehicle breakdown on the road somewhere. Up until the time of his death, Harold was one of just a handful of people I personally knew who still had a land-line telephone in their residence. Rounding off the subscription list of potential “fancy, schmancy” types of electronic gizmos which Harold had ZERO interest in, please add both Cable TV and Satellite TV to the things Harold never owned or even wanted to experiment with for a while.
To pour even more gasoline on the fire here, did I mention that Harold arguably might’ve been the #1 Biggest Fan of Elvis Presley in either Massachusetts or New Hampshire? Heaven forbid!
So with all that said about the very “peculiar” Harold Thompson, would you care to guess if he went ahead and actually got a COVID vaccination shot during the recent National Pandemic here in the USA. If you guessed he rejected ever taking the vaccine, you’d be absolutely correct.
I realize that I’ve probably said this about dozens of people in my lifetime, but this time I really mean it: After God made Harold L. Thompson, He then broke the Mold. Never before and never again will God ever create another individual exactly like him. Harold truly marched to the beat of a different drummer — and I’m saying that as a compliment, not as an insult.
After being diagnosed with Cancer, I’m sure Harold felt a tremendous sense of discouragement about that and perhaps some other situations in his personal life, but now all the pain and suffering has graciously ended as Harold will spend all eternity with our living Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s only been a little more than a week now since Harold went up to be with the Lord, and I already miss him to pieces but I fully realize that he’s much better off with God in Heaven than he is back here on Earth.
I’d like to close this personal eulogy of mine to my brother in Christ, Harold Thompson, with arguably the greatest epitaph ever written — it was authored by Paul the Apostle and is published in the Biblical book of 2 Timothy. Hopefully, this scripture will serve as a reminder of what Harold’s life here on Earth was all about, as well as give us all some insight of what he’s got to look forward to now:
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. — 2 Timothy 4:7-8
Rest in Peace, my dear friend Harold. It was truly a Joy, a Blessing, and an Honor just to hang around and do stuff with you for the past 64 years or so. I anxiously look forward to seeing you again sometime in the future. Agape
One Bad Decision Away From Homelessness 