[CPT-UK] Remembering Tom Fox

[Tim Nafziger]

Dear Christian Peacemaker Teams UK friends,

In times like these its often difficult to know what to say or email.
However, I felt this letter from my friend Sheila Provencher was an intimate
and moving portrait of Tom that is a poignant memorial to his life and
witness.

I hope you'll find it as meaningful as I did:

Sheila Provencher, Electronic Iraq, 13 March 2006
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2303.shtml

Dear Tom,

I wish that everyone I love could have met you too. I keep crying but I also
feel overwhelmed by the gift of having known you and loved you, my beloved
uncle - "Amu Tom" as all the Iraqi and Palestinian children called you. How
could we have had such a gift in you? You were gentleness, patience,
compassion, forgiveness, and courage.

I cannot believe how patient you always were with me. When I walked into the
kitchen in CPT's apartment in Baghdad and flipped out because the person
ahead of me on the job chart had not prepared the water for the day, you
just smiled and listened and excused all my crabbiness as the result of
stress. You were always one of the people I could confide in.

Every morning in "no man's land" between Iraq and Syria with the Palestinian
refugees, we got up and sat outside our tent, and you read from "The Cloud
of Unknowing" and I read from the Liturgy of the Hours. Then we would talk
about what message we each "got" at the time. It was my favorite half-hour
of the day.

When the Red Sox finally won the World Series after 86 years, and my parents
were so excited to share the news with me that they phoned Baghdad and
accidentally woke you up at 6:00am Baghdad time, and you answered the phone
but I was still in Amman and had not yet arrived, and in fact you and I had
not even met yet, and here you were listening to these crazy people
screaming about how the Red Sox had finally won, you just smiled and said
"Well, I'm happy for you," even though you did not even know what was going
on. When I met you the next day you told me that my parents had called.

You cooked like a master while claiming it was simple. "Anything tastes good
if you add enough butter to it." I still wonder if you ever cooked for the
people who took you. If they let you, I am sure that you would have.

The night before I left Baghdad in November 2005, two nights before you were
taken, you led the good-bye prayer service. You said to me, "I don't know
why, I just have this feeling that I want to do a Eucharist service for you.
Don't ask me why a Quaker would lead a Eucharist, but I have a feeling this
is what we're supposed to do." So we broke bread and drank grape juice and
all shared the communion prayer, men and women taking turns. I think Anita
wound up with the actual words of consecration. Afterwards you joked about
this being your First Communion, at age 54, and we took pictures of me
giving you communion, you kneeling like a devout altar boy. Laughing in the
candlelight.

Six mornings a week, this past Fall, you would do yoga on the roof, greeting
the sun as it peeked over the Baghdad skyline. I was on the other side of
the roof, jumping rope and walking in circles around the whole roof, passing
you in your meditation. I can still see you in my mind, stretching out like
a tree with the dawn on your face.

I can hear your voice in my heart. You say things like, "Well, this was what
was supposed to happen." "I'm just glad I could be here to help." "You keep
taking care of yourself, now." Your one deep pain was knowing the anguish
that your suffering could cause your children. You loved them so much,
always sharing pictures and stories of them with all of our Iraqi and
Palestinian friends.

We met in October 2004, right after Margaret Hassan had been killed. You,
Matthew, and I were the whole team in Baghdad, and we talked about
kidnapping, what could happen to us, and if we should stay in Iraq. You
wrote a statement of conviction that included the words, "If I am ever
called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in love of enemy, I trust that
God will give me the grace to do so." You did it, Tom. You were faithful
until the very end. I imagine that even when you were about to die, you
looked with forgiveness at the man who would kill you.

You bore in your own body the sufferings of everyone who has also been
tortured and killed.

God, help us to be as faithful.

Sheila Provencher, a CPT member, worked closely with Fox in Iraq.
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