Random thoughts. In the dark. In the night. Everyone gets to do it. Face death, I mean. The lucky ones get to do it more than once. Thats not as dark as it sounds. There is a defining quality to facing death. Defining you. Defining your life. Defining your friends. You want to know who you can rely on? Find yourself teetering between this life and the next. In those moments, you get to see who faces it with you. Not with painted on smiles. Not with tears and open sobs. But clear-eyed, standing tall, looking you straight in the eye. Communicating in the most basic human way, that whatever comes, it has to face both of us. Such people are rare. More than the friend you can call at 3:00 in the morning and ask to help you move. This is a friend who will take a bullet. A friend for all time. It will be 29 years, St Patricks Day. I was on my way to work, and was hit, thrown 55 feet through an intersection, and run over. By a doctor, driving a 75 Cadillac. In those moments, laying in Louisana Avenue between the Bone and Joint clinic, and Wellman Funeral Home, I really did see Life pass before my eyes. Growing up, a Chinese immigrant in Gurdon, Arkansas. Laying rails for the Burlington, in central Wisconsin.... Figures. 3 minutes to live, and the life passing before my eyes isnt even mine. Ill spare you the gory details. And they really are gory. But that was the second time I got to face death. If I told you about the first, youd never sleep again. I hit the trauma center, and there were 4 people whod beaten me to the hospital. Two clients, one psycho ex-girlfriend looking to make points with the TV station by getting an exclusive on a breaking story, and a young woman Id met only by telephone. The clients, good Christian people without a hostile bone in their bodies, were busy pulling the admitting nurse over the desk by her lapels with the words, Let me put it to you this way, either HEs admitted right this minute....or YOU are.... Theyre still the closest thing I will ever have to family. The psycho ex-girlfriend...well, she barged into the trauma room flashing her press credentials...and I had her barged right back out, again, under escort. I think they got that on video tape. That was followed by an Allstate Insurance adjuster who slapped a document down on my chest and asked me to sign it. Now, Id had enough morphine to take the edge off an active volcano, by that time, but, with one leg laying in a different part of the room, I still about came up off the table at him and took him apart before the doctor asked me to lie back down. I didnt see that one again. And there was the young girl. She was out in the corridor. Quiet. Out of the way. Just there. Id gotten to know her through her sister. It was one of those moments that happen in a disc jockeys career, when you pick up the request line and youre suddenly dealing with someones family crisis. Im not going to spill their laundry, but it was pretty big. And I spent the rest of my show, and most of the next couple days, talking the sister off the ledge, to help keep the family on track, while the details got sorted out. Which they did. And I thought that was that. And then I heard from this young woman. The younger sister in the family. We got to talking about what had happened. She thanked me for my patience, and my calm. And we got to talking. Just stuff. We talked about every day, every other day, for about a year, after that. And then things tapered off. But, in amongst all that conversation, came this life threatening incident. Over the next two and a half months, I had forty surgeries, or so, and died on the table, twice. Too many medications, anesthetics and pain killers, and the system just gave up. The remaining surgeries they did, after that, they did while I was awake. Usually in my room. Watching Star Trek on a station out of Longview on a 5 Quasar portable. Well, I did live pretty well, while I was there. No sense in giving up the important things, just because of, well, you know...death. After two and a half months, I got out...snuck out, actually...and went back to my apartment, and learned to cope with the pain, and the immobility, and the dressings that needed to be changed, and getting around, feeding myself and such...before the crush of people grimly determined to help could show up and get in the way. And in about 2 days, I was back at work. Recovery was awful. And took a decade. Fast forward to two years ago. I was driving to a church in Huntley, where I was the sound manager. And the phone rang. I recognized the voice immediately. And after a couple of cautious exchanges where we ascertained we really were talking to who we thought we were, the conversation began in earnest. And, we talked about everything. Caught up her life, caught up mine. Caught up mutual friends lives. Caught up politics. I was..I am...really proud of her. Shes done well. Head screwed on straight. And I told her so. And then she laid the heavy stuff on me. Shed been there. Every day. At the hospital. Through it all. Every day. Shed never come in the room. The psycho ex-girlfriend...who is actually one of her Facebook friends--Ill never figure that one out...made a stink about her coming into the room. And made quite a public noise about it. So, she stayed outside. She didnt want to make trouble for me. So, she stayed out. Pretty generous thinking for someone whose generation is so self absorbed. Now, Id just been hit by a car, was a mess of open wounds, and broken bones...I dont really see how much worse it could have been had she actually come in the room. But, she didnt. But she was there. About every day. And for 26 years, shed wanted to tell me why she never came to see me. That it bothered her that I might think that she didnt care. Or that she got too busy. And she wanted me to know that she was there. Now, the head nurse had told me at the time. And I passed the word that it was ok that she came in to visit. And I know how it would have been. No pasted on smiles. No tears. I know that, because I saw that out in the corridor when they were wheeling me into Trauma. She was there, clear-eyed. Standing tall. Worried, but not afraid to look me in the eye. But, she opted not to cross that threshold, for fear of the trouble the psycho may have made. And, after 26 years, and multiple life events for both of us, she was compelled to track me down and tell me that it was important that I know that she had been there all those days, all those years ago. I got off the phone with her, and sat in the parking lot at the church, and just soaked things up for a moment. And, became kind of amused. See, things werent going so well for me. Life had taken an ugly turn. Career was faltering. Id come to doubt even my own skills and talents. And this wasnt the first time this had happened. And the last time, a voice from the past came by phone to also tell me how important it was that I know something. So, I was amused. And sat in the car and thanked the hand that had moved her to make that call. A voice of stability from so long ago, reaching out into a moment of chaos, with a bit of clarity. So, its two years later. And things are a little better now. But, every day since, Ive thought about that phone call. And how, after nearly 3 decades, a single voice, that Id only met one time, showed me what true friendship looks like. In a moment of darkness that threatened to be everlasting, that someone was a such a friend as to see it through, come what may. Im rarely humbled. But I certainly have been, by that.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 17:29:50 +0000
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