A Resilient Man
He was on the floor. Cursing! He couldn’t believe he did it again. He got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and forgot. He forgot that he needed a cane to walk. He forgot the stroke he had last year left the one side of his body useless. He forgot he was no longer a strong able-bodied man.
His wife was kneeling on the floor beside him trying to calm him, saying “It’s okay, I’ll call the EMT’s to get you up,”
“No”, he yelled, “Don’t you dare call them.” He had relieved his bladder on the floor when he fell and didn’t need to be embarrassed further. His wife already had a towel beside him.
“I can’t lift you, you know that.” she said.
“I know, I’m not asking you too,” he blurted out with more anger than he intended. All his life he had been a fearless, active man. His job had him easily climbing scaffolding and walking on beams 20 stories in the air. He had conquered many health challenges in the past, diabetes and open-heart surgery among them. But this he realized he would never be able to overcome.
“Get a foot stool. I’ll try to get up a little that way and then see if I can get onto a chair.” His years as a steamfitter, wrestling 300 pound pipe up impossible angles, gave him the ability to imagine ways to move large heavy objects.
After some struggle he was able to get back into bed. Looking up at the ceiling, a tear leaked out the corner of his eye as he looked over his life. He was no use to anyone anymore, just a burden, a problem to all, especially his wife and family. He would be better off dead. And so he planned ways he could do that.
The news of a new grandchild coming didn’t help alleviate his depression. All he could think was not being able to be the grandfather he had been with the others.
When the beautiful child, as fragile and white as porcelain, came early, never could he imagine something so tiny could make such a huge impact on his life.
Chloe, a Downs baby, born with two holes in her heart among other serious health problems, had to have intensive open-heart surgery at two months old.
When he was finally able to hold her little body, she smiled up at him and lifted her delicate hand to his face. Tears filled his eyes remembering his own heart surgery, the pain and long recovery. Ten months later as he watched her determined little face beam as she pulled herself up on her walker to get to him, he knew their bond was sealed.
After Chloe’s one-year birthday party, he said to his wife, “If that sweet child can smile and be so loving, after all she has gone through so young, surely I can do the same.”
And he did.
By Joanette McGoech