For this entry, I'll switch to a more somber topic since something happened to trigger this yesterday. Death played a pretty significant role in my life in 2006. I lost three close family members and our own pet cat of 15 years named Dustin. It brought on the inevitable sorrow to my intimate family that losing someone always does; that hollow feeling of helplessness and for some reason, a lingering residue of guilt. I think everyone has second guessed themselves before after the loss of a loved one. Did they visit them enough? Did they do enough for them? Did the express their love for them enough? Was there too much lack of communication? Things of that nature. Almost like we're blaming ourselves for the death that was going to take place no matter how we react in life. Death is inevitable for all of us. How we die is a different matter. Taken swiftly by a sudden illness or fatal accident seems so unfair because no one was able to prepare themselves for the loss. However, after watching people or pets get old, one has to ponder the mercy of a swift death. Yes, the loved ones grieve in the event of an untimely death; but watching someone you love grow to the point of not being able to care for themselves is not exactly a treat. They fight the impending placement of nursing homes for full time care because no one in the family can take on the burden.
How often do people or animals grow old gracefully? Not too often. Point and case, where I work as a grunt laborer, there is a small house located next door. In this house live an elderly couple in feeble health and stature. I don't know this couple personally, but I know of their existence as a voyeur who works next door and watches the old man labor out to his riding lawn mower and praying he'll be limber enough to get his leg straddled over the seat without falling. I hold my breath until I see him sitting safely. He has come into the place I work a few times. He walks across the parking lot that adjoins his own driveway and he is almost comically slow. Although, there is nothing comical about it. It's sad and our defense mechanisms and childhood cruelties take over our emotions and sometimes the only way to deal with our angst is to laugh at what we see. I don't laugh. But I'm not exactly innocent throughout the duration of my lifetime. Yesterday, I went left the shop and went inside to remove a bothersome splinter from my finger. After a couple of minutes of failing to remove it, a coworker from the shop came in and said, "Jody, can you give me a hand, the old guy next door fell." He said it so casually almost that I wasn't quite sure how serious the situation was or whether I was actually qualified enough to even assist. I didn't think. I reacted. I sprinted out the shop door and ran even faster to the little house next door where the elderly couple lived. Along the way, I saw the old woman walking slowly, but with urgency back to her yard. It appeared to me that she had come to us to solicit help and that's when my coworker had recruited me.
"Where is he, Ma'am?" I asked as I came up beside her.
"He's over by the car," she said.
The late model Subaru wagon was parked close to their house for obvious reasons. Sure enough, as I turned the corner from the left rear quarter of their car, I saw the man face down on the paved driveway. The worst thing about this site was the fact he was struggling so hard to get up. He didn't even have the strength to get up onto his knees, but he fought as hard as he could to lift his upper torso from the pavement with his arms.
I kneeled down in front of him and assured him I was there to help. Utter frustration and denial with a slight hint of appreciation expelled from his facial features in the nanoseconds of the moment. I had to ensure that he hadn't hurt himself before I attempted to lift him. I didn't want to be the cause for further injury. He assured me he was okay, just very weak. I lifted him up onto his knees, while on my own and got him in a kneeling position facing me. I let him regain his composure and rest a little and when he was ready, I told him to place his arms around my shoulders and neck in a hug embrace and I would stand up with him. My coworker assisted me in getting the man's girth up from the tarmac and once standing he wobbled unsteadily on extremely weak limbs. How long had he been struggling before his pride had faltered and he sent his wife for help, I wondered.
"Just get me to the stairs," he said. I thought to myself, we're going to do a little better than that. Slowly and steadily, my coworker on one side and me on the other, we provided the old man with legs and limbs he no longer had to make the short journey to his steps, up all three, and inside his house where we got him to his kitchen table and sat him down. I told him not to move until he had caught his breath and regained his strength. He thanked me with sincerity and embarrassment and I shrugged off any act of heroism. I'm not a hero. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary. I didn't do anything I wouldn't expect any other human being to do under the same circumstances. Yet the wife of this embarrassed man had to grab my arm and thank me from the bottom of her heart and declare she didn't know what she'd have done without us. They simply needed help and I was glad to be the one to help them. I left wondering if he was going to be okay. I walked down the three cement steps of their stoop wondering if he had fallen there what the circumstances would have been. I found myself taking peeks over at their house for the remainder of my shift and then I went home. I didn't tell anyone what I had done until I saw my wife when she got home. She the only person in the world I feel compelled to impress because I am addicted to her support and her love for me.
Last night, before I went to bed, I had to pick up the hind quarters of my German shepherd to assist him to stand. He'll be 12 this November and if anyone knows anything about dogs, they know shepherds and other large dogs do not get old gracefully. After he labored out the back yard and back in the house again, I made my way down to hug him and kiss him and he was overjoyed to have me giving him the attention. It dawned on me that he didn't ask to get old and feeble. Just like the elderly couple that live next door to where I work. I'm sure if given the choice, he'd opt to be a puppy where he could run and play and feel free of the crippling arthritis that has unforgivingly stricken him. He licked my face a couple of times and made a content expression and the emotions of the day caught up with me. I started to bawl thinking of the old man and how he was going to be able to take care of himself and his wife. How I had lost my beloved grandfather, aunt, uncle, and family pet late last year, and how I knew in my heart I would endure more death this year. My dog won't make another winter. Not a very comfortable one, anyway.
As inevitable as death is, you'd think we'd have come up with a defense mechanism for the blank, hollow emptiness we feel when we lose someone close to us. It doesn't matter how they die, how untimely or how expected. Watching the loved ones die a slow and agonizing death is as painful as the shock of having one whisked away without a moment's notice. There is no true way of handling it any better than mourning until time heals the best it can. Inevitably, we're all going to be that old man or old lady that live next door to where I work. Or we're going to be snatched away in some other more untimely fashion. Death and taxes, after all. The only real guarantee that the gift of life offers us.
Jody L. Campbell
5-10-07
Posted at: 06:23 AM | Add Comment
