OZARK, MO — Lying in the rehab center bed, staring at the ceiling. Tears well up in his eyes. Nothing to live for. At age 21, the young man has lost his leg from a motorcycle crash.
Another man, 44, also bitter and depressed. Angry. Dissolutioned. He, too, lost his leg.
An older man joins them in rehab. He’s 75, most of his life behind him. He, too, has suffered a leg amputation. But the older man’s attitude is completely different.
A new way of looking at life
“What do you want to do with your life?” he asks the youngest man. The younger man bitterly describes what he had hoped to do, before the tragic accident.
“You can still do that,” the older man encourages. Hope, like a tiny spark, is ignited.
The older man is none other than Christian County Presiding Commissioner Lynn Morris.
His leg was amputated two weeks after a brown recluse spider bit him three times on the left foot the day before Mother’s Day. “I had slipped into some rubber shoes in the garage that I hadn’t used since last year,” Morris recalls. “Pretty soon I felt like passing out. I could barely walk. I could barely see. I’m thankful I didn’t fall into the swimming pool.”
Morris dragged himself into a chair and passed out. His wife, Janet, found him. He refused to go to the ER, instead crawling into bed. “I felt so sick, I thought I was going to die.”
Three dangerous bites
Two weeks later, doctors discovered poison from three bites from a brown recluse spider rapidly advancing. “It was moving up my leg at the rate of half an inch per hour,” Morris told the CCT. “They had to amputate below the knee.”
Morris, founder and owner of a sizeable pharmacy chain (Family Pharmacy) and former Missouri State Representative, now serves as Presiding Commissioner of Christian County, Missouri, a position of great influence and power. His work ethic and hectic pacing keep him visible at many public gatherings around Christian County and important county meetings inside the historic courthouse on the square in Ozark.
He has an upstairs office, but now remains downstairs in the commission chambers. “I never really cared about the courthouse not being ADA compliant — until now,” he said, sitting in his wheelchair. Morris is waiting for a prosthetic leg. And plans to ace the test of learning how to use it. Despite suffering from diabetes, Morris is relentless at pursuing goals. He has organized unprecedented “think tank” gatherings for citizens to voice opinions and take action on numerous topics important to them.
Watching Morris work and interact with so many kinds of people, one soon understands why he wins every election he runs for.
But his heart is his most important feature. He plans to continue communication with the two younger men and other amputees. He wants to make sure they see the light at the end of the tunnel and emerge with hope and progress. “I’ll be back to the rehab center after my journey there is over, and I’ll continue to encourage other people.”
The public restrooms are on the first floor only of the three-story courthouse. “I have to push the door open with my remaining foot, wheel inside, and turn the chair around once inside,” Morris says of the bathroom. “The men’s room doesn’t have a bar to steady yourself. You can’t just hop along without another leg; it’s amazing how limiting it is.”
Back to work, work, work
His wife Janet continues to drive him to work, and Morris continues to work, work, work. A map of the new government plaza is spread out on a conference table in the commissioner’s meeting room. Morris is a high-level communicator. He answers phone calls. He uses his personal time and money to follow up on issues facing residents.
“I pray for those people,” he says of others facing physical challenges. “I made sure the two men in my room at the hospital were saved (found a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as Savior) before I left.”