My brother Pat paid me a visit today; he arrived just shortly before feeding time. I know your probably wondering why I just didn’t call it lunch. Well lunch was, and I use the word was because lunch was something special my wife and I would do once a season, five times a year if we got a good tax return. As I can recall our last lunch alone together was only a little more than a week ago, and it didn’t involve any bibs, there wasn’t any one throwing up and we didn’t have to sit at a table with ten or so other strangers.
Feeding time at the Kessler Institute turned out to be my first real hint of what all these doctors and nurses were referring to as one of my life changing experiences. Feeding time was hard, both physically and mentally. Sitting at a twenty-foot table with ten or so other men and women. Mostly stroke victims, who just days before were walking this earth going about their daily activities. Now they could barely speak. Flanked by their nurse and aides, most drooling uncontrollably on their throw away bibs. Trying not to choke on their pureed pork chop and applesauce. We were there at the feeding table because the stroke took away our ability to swallow correctly and let me tell you, that’s no fun.
While my brother Pat sat waiting patiently to remove his sympathy smile and put on his everyday happy face, I was imagining my pureed pees as a hot sack of sliders. Pat was sitting to the far side of the room on a lonely metal folding chair.
The whole thing felt so institutional it was scary. So anxious to talk to my brother I opted to skip the desert cart. With my somewhat involuntary mind meandering a bit. I started to think of all the years of fun we had, fishing, the music we played together, Christmas, New Years, all the weddings, kids birthdays, golf. The thousands of laughs, sometimes just for no reason at all.
When I returned to reality my aid was removing my bib. I was looking at Pat; and I knew he saw the big picture here and it was one where I didn’t belong.
With a combined effort we smiled, and were somehow able to find some laughter, and as always the laughter became contagious and seemingly out of control. For a half dozen or so others at the table it was a moving kind of laughter; a laughter that brought a puzzling kind of smile to their faces, but for me and Pat it was an exhilarating confident and stimulating way of communication that gave me the spirit and strength of character to take control and set out on a mission to regain my independence.
Laughter can be such a great tool just a simple smile can contain a universal vocabulary as big as the universe itself. Smile at someone, they’ll smile back. If not, I was wrong, try someone else. Times like this can be very emotionally confusing. Ya Think I always try to remember that tears and laughter are so many times on opposite sides of the moment.
I knew I didn’t belong there and I certainly didn’t want to be there. If I accept my life the way it is instead of the way it could be, then I’m living with no spirit and without spirit what is there? There’s nothing, nothing but an unexplained emptiness.
I wanted to be home, I wanted to hug my wife, see my dogs, go fishing, tailgate, barbeque, play my fiddle, drive my car, talk, walk see my daughter who was fifteen hundred miles away and didn’t know the real trouble I was in. I needed to get out! Out of that indescribable frustrating space in time! In my mind I didn’t belong there. But this was the hand I was dealt, and I had to play it. I was sure now the ball was in my court and I had to take it and run with it. I had to have a plan.
Pat and I left the feeding table, he wheeled me down the hall and out to the courtyard. The courtyard was nice. The courtyard had somewhat of a calming effect on me. When I would go to the courtyard I just left all my frustrations at the door. You could go into the courtyard and see the sky. There was open air and everyone was happy to see one another, because we all had one thing in common and that was; we all had hope; which brings to mind this little bar in Copenhagen. Oh never mind that’s a whole other time and place all together.
We would see others in the courtyard, some in wheel chairs like myself. However there were some who had spinal cord injuries that were in quad chairs attached to ventilators. Of coarse they couldn’t talk, but if I smiled they smiled back.
I’m sure any one of the people I looked at when I come out that door to the courtyard would give anything to be in a better place in time, or to have their savior walk through that door and make their lives the way they were again.
As much as we all wanted to turn back the hands of time, to stop what we were doing at the time of our accident and get a second chance, sadly we can’t go back. We can only look back; learn from mistakes that were made and move on.
We’re always moving forward like it or not. So why should I just lethargically tumble through life the way I am? Why not start with the here and now and take this moment, this moment in time that belongs to me. A moment that now seems almost describable and not so frustrating. Why not start playing the hand I was dealt.
Of coarse I can fold, I can fold any time I want. Sure go ahead, games over, easy, right? I’ve seen people accept defeat; it’s a sad sight. Defeat always seems to start with self pity, “ why me” If I give self-pity a chance it would certainly destroy me. Self-pity is the enemy and if I let it sneak in, over power me and join forces with something called depression, I’m done, finished. I’d be forced to fold and accept defeat.
Well guess what? That’s not happening here. Who wants to loose? Not me. It’s good to win. Everybody wants to win. To be on the winning team is a great feeling. All I had to do was open my eyes and look around. It’s all right in front of me. Family, friends, all the great people here at Kessler, that’s my winning team. I was so aware of my surroundings, my mind was so clear I could see that all I had to do was open my heart, let them in and there would be absolutely no room at the Inn for sadness and despair. Don’t forget, winner takes all.