Roy Exum: Goodbye, Dr. Nassour

About 51 years ago, right after Jim Creel had graduated from the University of Texas and was in Guadalajara for medical school, he was surprised to find a complete stranger sitting on his battered and dusty Volkswagen. “He had seen my Longhorns sticker and was thrilled to find somebody else in Mexico who loved the University of Texas.

“That’s when our friendship started and it never waned. Paul Nassour was a wonderful friend, a brilliant physician and a beautiful human being,” said Dr.

Creel about his emergency-room colleague who died last week after a lifetime of service to others. The marvelous memories and countless stories will begin tomorrow afternoon when a huge crowd will gather for the visitation at the Wilson and Sons Funeral home in Fort Oglethorpe.

The funeral home isn’t far from Hutcheson Hospital where “Dr. Nasty” treated thousands of patients while presiding over the emergency room. “A lot of people called Paul ‘Dr. Nasty’ and I suspect it was because none of them knew how to pronounce Nassour in a Southern accent but he could have cared less. He was ‘laid-back Texas’ but in a very good way,” said Dr. Creel.

The ‘laid back’ part of Dr. Nassour will be on prominent display at Thursday’s 11 a.m. service as the family has requested their friends to wear Texas-style blue jeans and cowboy boots for Paul’s last goodbye. That creates a little bit of a problem since the doctor’s most respectful crowd are the law enforcement, firefighters, and EMTs of Georgia’s closely-knit Region One emergency response community who already wear uniforms. These professionals have been asked to serve as honorary pallbearers and, in Texas parlance, that alone will “a sizable herd.”

Dr. Nassour was a legend among those who keep us safe. Several weeks ago he was made an honorary Georgia State Trooper and it is well known he was an honorary deputy sheriff in a number of Georgia counties. “It was his service that stuck out … it’s wasn’t just medicine. He loved people and whenever you were around him you sensed everything would be okay,” said one EMT.

Al Yates remembered, “Several years after a co-worker of mine died on the job I mentioned his name and Paul told me, ‘I was ready! I could have saved him … I know I could have done something.’ His mindset was that there are no unsustainable patients. He approached every patient as if they were workable, no matter how bad their condition might be.”

Al, who served for seven years on the Northwest Georgia Region One Advisory Council, paid Dr. Nassour the ultimate tribute: “I am not being dramatic in saying if we could gather and line up to donate days of our time here on earth, like we give blood, to give him more days there is not one of us who would not stand in line to give back to him.”

Paul Nassour was born in Beirut, Lebanon, but moved with his family to Texas at the age of 3. He was the oldest of eight children born to Herbert and Hoda Nassour and each child has distinguished themselves in medicine, law, and in public service to others.

“Paul was all about people,” said Dr. Creel. “I think the reason you are sensing such a huge loss in our area is because the touched so many people.”

Curiously, what Dr. Nassour did for the countless patients, the nurses he worked beside and the emergency responders may be best reflected in the fact that he will leave an indelible mark on each of them. Over 80 years ago a lady living in Baltimore said it best in a poem that she scribbled on a paper sack. Mary Elizabeth Frye said the words of how she felt about life and death “just came to her” as she fretted the fact a friend’s mother had died:

A THOUSAND WINDS

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

* * *

May God richly bless the life of Paul Anthony Nassour, M.D.

royexum@aol.com