Somewhere near Destin, Florida sits an old man who paints heaven after living through hell.
They call him the Lizard. Every day, he rolls his wheelchair down the dock and every day, he quietly paints as he soaks up the sun. The workers at the marina had a pool to guess his identity, but no one really knew for sure. All they knew was that he was old and didn’t speak. A
nd that had been painting on that dock for as long as they had been alive.
As the Lizard quietly applied watercolor to canvas, a slight breeze rippled the clear water. Cumulonimbus clouds exploded on the horizon. Storms would be there by noon. But that didn’t seem to bother the Lizard. He just continued to paint.
A gull landed on a post nearby. The Lizard stopped what he was doing and pulled a crust of bread out of the tackle box. He tossed it to the waiting bird. It seized the crust and flew off. It was a routine the two practiced every morning. The Lizard wished he could be so free.
Instead, he continued to be a prisoner of a war that ended so many years ago.
In an attempt to be released, he had painted over 500 paintings since the end of World War 2. That war. The war that cost him his soul.
A sergeant in the Marine Corps, the Lizard had been in a fox hole on some Godforsaken South Pacific Island. A Japanese late-night sneak attack cost his best friend’s life. The Lizard was on watch and had fallen asleep. For reasons he didn’t understand, they spared him.
He wished he had died that night.
The next day he tried to commit suicide by charging a Japanese machine gun nest. Instead of the death, he received the Congressional Medal of Honor.
The last time the Lizard spoke was when he gave the medal to his best friend’s parent’s. His last words were, “I’m so sorry.” That was in 1946. The next day, he walked away from his parent’s home and disappeared into the night. He took his Marine Corps back pay and bought a small piece of land on the Gulf Coast. Then he picked up a brush and tried to make peace with God.
Everyday, he prayed, “Release me from this pain. Let me die on this dock.”
But God had other plans. One day, a rich yacht owner saw one of The Lizard’s paintings. While reluctant to sell at first, the Lizard wrote an obscene number on a piece of paper — and the crazy rich fool bought it. The old man held the check in his hand and felt the Holy Spirit plant a seed of an idea into his head.
Today, the V.A. Outpatient Clinic at Eglin Air Force base has a secret benefactor. Returning warriors from Iraq and Afghanistan receive extra care and help. And those suffering from PTSD have an angel watching out for them.
An angel named the Lizard — just an old man painting heaven after suffering through hell.