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Pfleger: ‘Deacon Harold Neiman was a gentle spirit’

‘A good man who loved the Lord’

By Chinta Strausberg

Funeral services for 61-year-old Deacon Harold Neiman was held Saturday at Saint Sabina Church where Father Michael L. Pfleger, friends, family and representatives from the Archdiocese who said he had a “gentle spirit,” a dedicated deacon, a great dancer, a dapper dresser and a man who loved his wife, Fabienne, whom he married 17-years ago.

Recalling a telephone call he received from Deacon Neiman, who had the flu, more than a week ago, Pfleger said he told him he wouldn’t be at church on Sunday. “What he didn’t tell me,” Pfleger said, “was that he would be with Jesus.”

 Recalling the death of his 17-year-old son, Jarvis Franklin, who was shot on May 30, 1998, Father Pfleger sat up all night in his room and asked God “Where were you when my son was killed,” and it wasn’t until early the next morning when he received an answer. God replied, “The same place I was when my son was killed, right there…” and will bring you through this storm.

Referring to Deacon Neiman’s sudden death, Pfleger said, “It would be easy to come here and be paralyzed and to be overwhelmed by the suddenness of Harold’s death. He was in such good health and shape. I was always joking with him. He was in such great shape. There was no warning…no signs. He was so young.

“It would be easy to be overwhelmed and consumed with Deacon’s lost, but it is in times like this that what you believe makes all the difference,” said Father Pfleger. It is times like this that the question of what do you believe rises.

“Because of our faith even though we feel the pain of the lost and the absence of his physical presence, we are able to come together in the Lord’s house and because of our faith we can come here in the midst of it all and feel comfort and feel strength and feel peace,” he said.

“Because in the midst of our pain, we know, we don’t wonder, we don’t have to guess, if we know that death is not the end for those who know Christ Jesus. Death is not the end of the road. Death is a stepping-stone. Death is a transformation. Death is an entrance and the fullness and the abundance life of Jesus Christ came and offered” those who knows him.

Quoting the bible, Pfleger said, “We don’t mourn like the world mourns because we know something that the world does not know.” “It is that knowledge. It is that faith that allows you and I to come here just like Mark and Mary and all the voices…to hear the voices…from deep within to hear the voice of Jesus.”

Quoting from the bible, Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me even if he dies shall live….”

Pfleger said tomorrow is not promised and told of a similar death of a Howard University student who fell ill also with the flu and died. “Life is not promised to you. Tomorrow is not promised to us. That is why every day we should” like at it as a gift.  “And, that is why we should embrace love and appreciate and hold unto each other.

“It is not the quantity of our day that determines our worth...but what we do between the gap between the birth place and the death date….

“The bible says we are known by the fruit we bear. Deacon Neiman bore some rich fruit,” said Pfleger. “It is not often that you can look at somebody and be able to say without a question or a doubt that he is a good man. Deacon Neiman was an exception. Deacon Neiman was an honorable man. He was a decent man. He was a good man.

“He had a spirit about him that was so peaceful. I envied that spirit,” confessed Pfleger. “He had a consoling presence when he came around you, when you were in his presence. You felt the peace that he had to offer you. Deacon Neiman was a gentle spirit whose kindness whose unselfishness and caring for others was evident.

“He was a gentle person. He had no ego…. He had no need to get attention.” Pfleger said Deacon Neiman wasn’t interested in letting people know about his power and presence of who he was. “He was not just a soft-spoken person. He didn’t speak a whole lot but rather he chose to let his witness of his actions speak for him and who he was and what he stood for.

“Deacon Neiman was one of the few people who I can say I never, ever heard a negative or derogatory word about anyone come out of his mouth,” said Pfleger. “There were times when I would nudge him and say, ‘Come on. There is somebody you don’t like.’ “But, Deacon Neiman never had a bad word to say about anyone.

“He was a gentle spirit. He was a good man. He enjoyed his life. He liked his sport…especially baseball, but he also liked stepping. He liked to be fashionable.” Pfleger said he was a dapper dresser and that his presence spoke for itself. “I like to dance, but I can’t dance. I make white people look bad,” he said. “Deacon Neiman was good on his feet, and he especially liked to dance with his bride…,” his wife, Fabienne.

Deacon Neiman, Pfleger said, “didn’t was a simple man who had his priorities straight” and loved and protected his wife. He also was deeply and sincerely involved in saving others and took his ministry seriously. Neiman, Pfleger said, “got involved and engaged in the Christ he served. He made the word flesh.”

“He loved being a deacon, and he loved proclaiming the gospel,” Pfleger said. “He never lost his reverence or lost his calling for what he did… He was engaged….

“He always gave his best. Deacon Neiman was a good man, and he loved his wife. He honored her and he protected her. You rarely saw one of them without the other.” Referring to a meeting they had, Pfleger asked Deacon Neiman if he wanted to start and he said ‘No, not without Fabienne’ or Fabe, as he called her. “He loved his Fabienne,” Pfleger said.

He told of when Deacon Neiman would speak at the altar he would look over to his wife who would nod her head as if to get an affirmation.” Looking at Deacon Neiman’s wife, Pfleger said, “It was clear to all that you were his queen and he was your king. He cherished you.”

Pfleger said even after 17-years, the couple never lost their passion for each other. They still dated” and cherished their companionship like the very first day they met. Pfleger warned other married couples not to let that flame for each other die and to keep on dating and yes, keep on being sexy and keep professing their love for each other. The Neiman’s Pfleger said, “were what relationships were all about.”

“Deacon Neiman was not a loud person…, but he was a strong person…. He loved and trusted God…. He really trusted in God and strongly believed in church and his family.

Father Pfleger said now Deacon Neiman can stand in the face of God…stand in the pulpit in heaven…. “Welcome home, Harold. We will see you” some other time. We will see you later.

A number of other people spoke including Deacon Dexter Watson who unashamedly cried saying “this is hard” especially so because Deacon Neiman was the fifth black deacon death in 2012 and one in 2011. He later said, “God is maybe sending a signal to the black deacons to be more conscious of what we are doing. It’s a signal to us. We are dwindling in numbers. There are less than 30 of us.

“Deacon Neiman was very strong, silent person. He was seven-months older than I am. He was a quiet leader. A lot of us are the opposite of that. He is one of the quiet person you waited to hear when he spoke,” said Deacon Watson.

“He was just a good person, and I will miss him. They were a wonderful couple that was quietly in love with each other. The whole black community will miss him,” said Watson.

A member of Saint Sabina for many years who is a candidate to become a deacon, Bill Hynes, who is white, praised Deacon Neiman saying he had answered the call. “He loved the Lord and he answered the call. I look to the day when I can be a member of the Black Catholic Deacons,” Hynes said.

Saint Sabina’s Deacon Leonard Richardson spoke saying Deacon Neiman “was a quiet storm. He could get you in that place.”

Among those speaking were Bishop Joseph N. Perry, The Episcopal Vicar for Vicariate VI of the Archdiocese of Chicago who lead the prayer, the Rev. Michael P. Alstrom, Vicar for the Diaconate Community, Archdiocese of Chicago who said there is a need for more “deacons of color,” Andrew Lyke, director of the Office for Black Catholics, Brenda B. Montgomery, a friend, Isadore Glover, Saint Sabina’s president of the Parish Council who read a poem, and several other friends.

Internationally known singer/organist Pierre Walker played “Daily I Will Worship Thee.” The welcome/opening rites prayer was given by: Deacon William Pouncy (first reading Wisdom 4:7-15), Deacon Davis Fair (second reading Romans 8:31-35, 37-39), and Deacon Leonard Richardson (Gospel Luke 20:36-38).

Songstress Deneen Taylor sang, “In This Very Room,” concluding the service with the collective singing of “This Little Light of Mine.”

Deacon Neiman leaves to mourn his wife, Fabienne, his parents, Harold Sr. and Pauline, a sister, Flavin, a brother, David, his stepsons, Wendell Fair and Christopher Rouffa, and a host of friends and family.

The Pallbearers were: David Neiman, Deacon William Pouncy, Deacon Ramon Navarro, Deacon Lendell Richardson, Deacon LeRoy T. Gill, Jr. and Deacon William McKinnis. Honorary Pallbearers were: Wendell Fair, Christopher Rouffa, Stephen Johnson, Mark Johnson, Tim Johnson and Eric Johnson.

His wife included a poem on the obituary:

         Harold,

Think of stepping on shore

And finding it Heaven!

Of taking hold of a hand

And finding it God’s

Of breathing new air,

And finding it celestial air,

Of feeling invigorated,

And finding it immortality,

Of passing from storm and tempest

To an unbroken calm,

Of waking up, and finding home!

I am always with you,

         Your Fabe

Burial was held at the Assumption Cemetery in Glenwood, Illinois.

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