Paul Farmer gave the eulogy at Tom White’s funeral. Tom was
one of the original founders of Partners in Health (PiH) and also its first investor. Farmer and PiH biographer, Tracy Kidder, writes that Tom probably gave away somewhere in the range of 50 million dollars to PiH throughout his lifetime: http://www.pih.org/blog/entry/tom-whites-greatest-gift. I thought Farmer’s reflections on his friend were absolutely compelling. Farmer writes:
How do you measure compassion and
goodness? As fond as Tom was of precision, his stock in trade as a builder, he
was deeply mistrustful of confident answers to this question. Long before he
knew success in business, Tom was asking hard questions about how to live in a
world in which it was simply not possible to be free of anxiety. For someone
who loved numbers and worked closely with engineers to build sturdy bridges and
tunnels and buildings, he was always the first to admit there was no unfailing
algebra of decency, no geometry of the heart or calculus of compassion. If I
may paraphrase Tom’s son Peter, Tom’s determination to realize eudaimonia- human flourishing- had
inspired all those gathered, as I noted in my eulogy:
Tom knew his math but also taught
many of us (to borrow form Ephesians) that we sometimes see best with the eyes
of the heart. He did not, in his charitable work, take short cuts or avoid the
hard process of discernment. Tom knew that everyone in this world can and does
suffer, but he also knew that some suffer more than others and that many suffer
injustice.
Tom’s generosity did not require
proximity. His imagination, and the eyes of his heart, allowed him to
understand suffering unlike any he had seen, even in the theatre of war. That’s
why his generosity was legendary not just in his hometown but around the world.
I hope I might be forgiven for mentioning his work in international health,
since that’s what we did together for almost thirty years. It was something of
a lost cause until Tom lent us his time and backing. Since Tom’s death,
Partners in Health, which Tom founded and
funded, has received messages of sympathy and support from Peru, Rwanda,
Lesotho, Russia, and especially, from Haiti. Allow me to indulge in what Tom
would term running the numbers: by our count, the organization he founded has
built or refurbished some sixty hospitals and clinics, scores of schools and
community centers, and employs, in over a dozen countries, more than thirteen
thousand people. As Jim Kim noted in speaking to the Boston Globe, Tom’s early investments in taking
on the care of people living in poverty and with chronic disease led directly
to major changes in the way global health is delivered, saving millions of
lives already and promising to save millions more.
Haiti: After the Earthquake, p. 237-38
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