Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993 TAG: 9304130292
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA DANIELS THE DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND (AP) LENGTH: Long
HE WOULD COUNT BLESSINGS, IF HE COULD
It should have been so easy.Two groups of tiny blocks appear on the computer screen. Underneath is the question: "Which box has the most blocks?"
John Marion, his brown hair disheveled as if he just rolled out of bed, sits and stares at the question on the screen. Then he counts the boxes and pushes a button - only to find out he is wrong.
Marion lets out a deep breath. Things weren't this difficult before.
Before was when the 49-year-old bachelor regularly went to work as a technical editor, working on complicated military manuals.
Before was when the soft-spoken man with bachelor's and master's degrees had never been at a loss for words, making a career as a journalist and English teacher with his command of the language.
Now he has trouble counting little computer blocks. Now he has difficulty finding the words to express himself. Now, Marion shakes his head when he cannot remember a passage of Scripture that reflects the way he feels.
"I know it's in there somewhere," says Marion as he points to his head with his forefinger. "But I have no idea where it is."
Tough as it is, Marion forgives those who have done this to him.
It all began on the overcast, breezy Saturday afternoon of Feb. 6.
Marion and several members of his church, St. Michael's Episcopal in Colonial Heights, had traveled to Norfolk for a diocese meeting at the Omni International Hotel. Saturday morning's session had been busy, filled with hymns, the bishop's address and a lengthy discussion of budget woes. During the midday break, several church members went outside for fresh air.
Marion, an alternate delegate to the conference, was one of them, walking along the sea wall at Waterside to enjoy the view of the ships docked across the Elizabeth River.
Perhaps he was so engrossed in the huge vessels that he didn't think to worry about walking alone. Perhaps he was so distracted by the scenery that he never saw the group of teen-agers that others later said they saw roaming the area.
All Marion knows about that day is what others have told him. Shortly before 2 that afternoon, someone found him lying behind the hotel in a pool of blood. He had been robbed, apparently set upon by a gang of teen-agers wielding a baseball bat.
Several weeks after his assault, Marion sits in the kitchen of a Richmond rehabilitation center and counts his blessings.
His physical wounds have nearly healed. The only visible scars left are an inch-long black and purple scab on the right side of his head and a round red bruise on his forehead, which he bashed on the concrete in the struggle.
Marion is confident he will fully recover, something he credits to God and the prayers of many.
After his assault, strangers prayed for him. People he had never met sent in money for his medical expenses. The youth group from Marion's parish sent him a royal blue sweat shirt decorated with a yellow cross and a white silk-screened dove. That support, especially from members of his church, was crucial for someone whose closest relatives lived far away.
"What the Lord has done for me through my brothers and sisters has blown me away," Marion said. "Since I've been here, my faith has never dropped."
Richard Condit, a friend of Marion's for nearly nine years, sees irony in the fact that Marion became a victim of inner-city violence.
"If the guys who hit him on the head would've asked him for money, he would've given them the money - then bought them lunch," he said. "That's the kind of guy he is."
Marion's the kind of guy who plays electric bass on the church's praise band, volunteers with a local soup kitchen, serves on the parish's healing team, said the Rev. David Wayland, interim rector of St. Michael's.
He's the kind of guy who turns the other cheek.
"I've known people who have been through severe trauma and questioned God," Wayland said. "John had come out of it feeling love and support. He said today `I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky.' "
Marion's psychiatrist, a specialist in brain-injury rehabilitation, agrees.
"I say anybody who lived through what happened to him is lucky," Dr. Nathan Zasler said.
The blows Marion received on his head caused his brain to swell, affecting the way it sends and receives messages to the rest of his body. Though he's now regained most of the balance skills he lost after the assault, he's not out of the woods yet, said Patricia Tiernan, head of services at the Richmond rehabilitation clinic where Marion spends two days a week.
"Rarely after a brain injury is someone 100 percent like they were before," she said. "He may always have some lingering issues to deal with."
Though the thieves who beat him took his wallet and two weeks of his memory, Marion forgives them for what they did.
"These guys not only almost killed me but they ruined their own lives," he said. "That's the sad thing."
The three teen-agers, charged with robbery, aggravated malicious wounding and conspiracy to commit robbery, will be tried as adults in Norfolk Circuit Court. All have been charged with other robberies occurring in the Waterside area, authorities said.
Though Marion doesn't know much about Berkley, the depressed neighborhood from which the alleged criminals came, he is well-versed in the crimes too often committed by inner-city youth with no guidance. His beating has sounded an alarm within himself, a call to launch a churchwide outreach program to minister to youth in poor neighborhoods.
"I believe very strongly that kids in this country have really been shortchanged," Marion said. "The love, the moral structure and the guidance they need, they're getting it from Satanic messages on the tube, the music they listen to. It's evil, absolutely nuts.
"Every Christian should be concerned with this. We can turn this around," he said. "That's a mission for the church right now. Because if it's not there, nothing is going to change."