File this one under: Incredible People Who Make You Feel Like A Selfish Asshat. Volume 69.
During my off days, I enjoy drinking to forget and feeling sorry for myself the next day when I can’t even move. Andrew Lumish, on the other hand, gets down on his hands and knees and scrubs the blackened tombstones of war veterans across the state of Florida.
The Tampa native’s day job is a specialty cleaning, so his skills transfer quite nicely to his passion: thanking the brave souls who fought for our country in his own unique way.
We’ve all seen how time and the elements can turn a tombstone into an eyesore, some to the point where you can no longer recognize who they’re honoring. This angered Lumish, for a reason he told CBS News:
“They were forgotten. I couldn’t properly thank them. I couldn’t properly understand who they were or what they were about.”
“If they can’t read it at all, they can’t celebrate it, they can’t honor that person, they can’t appreciate that person,” he said. “Whereas if you properly restore the monuments, you can begin an entire conversation, and potentially — in a figurative sense — bring that person back to life.”
Lumish claims that the time he spends scrubbing each individual stone varies, from 20 minutes to two hours.
The dude even set up a Facebook page, titled with his nickname: The Good Cemeterian. The site intends to celebrate these veterans lives by coupling photos of their stones with stories about the people they honor. As you may imagine, he gets a lot of praise from the families of these soldiers, but he struggles to fully accept it.
“I am appreciative of it, but I’m unworthy of the same respect of someone who chooses to go the route to serve our country,” Lumish said. “And for someone to approach me, to show me that level of respect, it’s humbling, to say the least.”
Jesus, I need to do something good in my life.
[h/t CBS News]