A Giant

First published October 14, 2005

I had a friend named Scott. He was a Giant.

He was one of the largest men I’ve ever known, with a body that could fill up a room or block out the sun. He once played Harry Potter’s Giant, Hagrid, to my Professor Dumbledore, standing a good-natured, grumbling guard over stacks of new Harry Potter books, while wide-eyed young fans trembled in his shadow then asked kind old Dumbledore to sign autographs.

But his size wasn’t what made him a Giant.

As you might expect of any good Giant, Scott wore a fierce, bristly beard that covered most of his face. The look could be so intimidating that you might not notice the eyes that twinkled through his wire-rimmed glasses. I believe that he could actually make his beard flare on command, especially when he saw something that displeased him.

But that big fierce beard wasn’t what made him a Giant.

He was a self-appointed peace maker. He could clear up just about any problem simply by striding into the middle of it. If he ever spotted someone who might be taking advantage of a weaker person, for any reason, he became an avenging Giant, and that would pretty much be the end of any advantage-taking.

But his ability to dominate a situation wasn’t what made him a Giant.

What made Scott a Giant was just Scott. He was a private sort of Giant, so like many of his friends I was only privileged to see and share tiny bits of his life. He was a warrior in Vietnam. Then he was a police officer. Then he was a Giant working in a book store. And through all these incarnations, he was a husband and a father and a friend.

Like a Giant should be, he was proud, but his pride was rarely self-directed. He wasn’t prone to talking all that much, and then rarely about himself without a lot of prodding. But he never got tired of telling his friends about the two people who occupied the center of his universe, his wife and his son. He was never happier than when he was delivering a detailed dribble-and-shot account of one of young Scottie’s basketball games.

It’s a personal source of pride to me that he loved my columns. Whenever he read a goofy one, his laughter would rumble like far-off thunder. Whenever he read one that tugged at his heart, he would come and find me, with tears streaming down his Giant face and disappearing into that fierce beard, and he’d say, “Ok, you got me!”

On those occasions it always surprised me that he was willing to let the world see a weeping Giant.

When I started writing this I had just been told that the decision had been made to take Scott off life support. I knew that it was his decision, and the right one, and I knew the probable outcome. But, like the dreamer that I am, I was hoping for some kind of miracle.

And when the word came that Scott had left this world, I felt sad, and diminished, and more than a little bit angry. I felt like I’d been cheated of my miracle, because I would never see my friend the Giant again.

But I was wrong. As I sit here and let my mind carry me back to the rumbling laughter and those tear-streaked cheeks, I realize that I got that miracle all right, and I’ll bet everybody else who knew him can say the same. You see, we all experienced an amazing thing.

A Giant passed our way.

Copyright © 2005 Michael Ball