A courageous journey ends

George Plagenz

What made it so sad was that while he saved others, himself he could not save. And so Robert Disbro closed the door to his law office one night and went home and took his own life.

For 40 years he had been an inspiration to other physically disabled persons. Bitter during the early years of his disability, Disbro remarked some time later, “I have pretty well conquered that. It still may come back periodically, but I try not to let it show.”

He covered it up with a lively sense of humor. I was in his office one cold, gray March morning as he looked out the window. “I’d give my right arm to be in Hawaii now,” he said, chuckling. He chuckled because he had no right arm. He lost it in 1944 when the Army jeep in which he was riding backed over a land mine. For a while it looked as if his right leg would have to be amputated too.

“I had three doctors treating me,” he said, recalling the experience. “One was a Protestant, one was a Catholic and one was Jewish. It was due to their superhuman efforts that I made it.”

Successful trial lawyer, matchless storyteller, amateur poet and faithful friend, Disbro spent much of his leisure (and working) hours alternately scolding and encouraging people who felt sorry for themselves.

“I know the feeling,” he said. “I grew up in poverty and wound up getting my arm blown off. My mother had 35 cents in her purse the day my father left us. My aunt managed to take $2 out of her savings without my uncle knowing about it and gave it to my mother so we could eat.”

But Disbro developed the philosophy that “it’s not what you’ve lost that matters. It’s what you have left that counts.” What he had left was courage, a fertile mind and compassion.

Although he affected a grumpy exterior, his heart was all marshmallow.

We were friends from the time we met in high school and our friendship deepened through the long years that followed. I buried his mother and officiated at his son’s wedding.

How did he make it across the great gulf that was fixed between the weakness a cruel fate had handed him and the strength he eventually found? He gave the answer in a poem he wrote:

It’s the struggle for others that transcends the gorge, That arc between weakness and strength that I forge.

When I rise the next morning feeling sorry for myself, I’ll reach for strength from my clients’ shelf.

Disbro was referring to the strength that comes from helping others through a bad time.

A judge once admonished Disbro for coming into his courtroom without a tie. He apologized to the judge. “I can’t tie a tie, your honor,” he said as he rose from his chair, exposing an empty coat sleeve.

It was the judge’s turn to apologize.

This is not the first story I have written about Bob Disbro. Another, written several years ago, was read into the Congressional Record by his friend, Sen. Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio. The Congressional Record tribute hung on the wall behind Disbro’s desk the night he closed his office door for the last time.

What had happened?

In the past couple of years, more physical infirmities bore down on him until even his great heart and valiant spirit could not take it.

But he took it longer — and endured it more bravely — than most of us could have. God will understand what he did.

Looking at some of Disbro’s final, poetic thoughts, I wonder if his words were designed to be his obituary:

The courtroom drama is over for the day,
Three more hours in the office, then away,
Away in the night toward peace and quiet.
George Plagenz is a syndicated columnist.