September 26, 2008 01:13 pm
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My ex-boss, the former sheriff, was desperately sick during the last months of 2007 and the first part of 2008. He spent six weeks in the VA hospital in Indianapolis with a severe case of pancreatitis. During most of that time, he was fed through a tube while attached also to a morphine pump. He asked me once when I visited if I thought he’d ever leave that hospital.
“Be honest, Vic.”
I wasn’t honest. I assured him I believed he’d recover but, in fact, I wasn’t sure at all, and neither were his doctors.
Eventually, they did surgery and had to remove 40 percent of his pancreas, the section that had been killed by the poisons trapped within it.
Like so many people who undergo a near-death experience, it caused him to re-evaluate his life and his goals. He decided he wanted to achieve three things. The first, of course, was good health (with numbers two and three depending on number one). To that end, he came home and maintained the diet taught to him in the hospital. He developed a program of walking, anywhere from five to 20 miles a day. He continued to lose weight (having been, let’s see, what’s the p.c. word — heavy-set? stout? portly? plump? — oh, heck, let’s face it, he was fat).
Goal number two was climbing to the top of Mount St. Helens. It was something he’d promised his son who’d been guilt-tripping him for years to lose weight and get in shape.
“Don’t you want to see your grandchildren grow up, Dad?”
Of course, he wanted to see the grandchildren grow up but addicts (be they addicted to alcohol, drugs, nicotine or biscuits and gravy) rarely respond to such heartfelt pleadings. It only makes them feel awful as they take another drink, hit, puff, bite.
But his illness was a life- and attitude-altering experience. He needed something to fasten his dreams to during his moments of thinking it would be easier to just give up, and reaching the peak of Mount St. Helens was a goal he chose.
“If I make it out of here alive, we’ll climb together,” he promised his son (and himself).
And they did. In August, his wife called to tell me he’d reached the top after 14 hours of conquering steep inclines and boulder fields and icy ravines. He told me later that he cried as he looked across the vast panorama before him (hard for anyone who knows the tough-as-nails, crusty old sheriff to imagine him with tears in his eyes) realizing where he’d been and where he now was.
Goal number three was killing a Cape Buffalo. Killing a thing to reaffirm your own life isn’t anything I would choose, but, you know, whatever works. For our sheriff, a lifelong hunter — winner of big buck competitions, shooter of bear and boar, hanger of moose and caribou and elk heads — pitting yourself against wildlife is the ultimate triumph.
I got an e-mail yesterday. He’s in Senegal, Africa. He just shot a Cape buffalo.
I went through a somewhat similar experience with my husband. The only difference was that he knew he wasn’t going to live. (His doctors estimated two years; he made it 19 months). I remember how often he told me: “Look, Vic, really look,” in the awareness that really looking is something we don’t do often enough when we want to believe that life stretches out endlessly before us.
He might want me to see a crimson cardinal on a snow-laden evergreen branch, or the way the sun glittered like diamonds on the rolling river, or buzzards cruising in giant, graceful circles in the sky.
Because he was resigned to his fate, his goals, unlike the sheriff’s, were small. With the time he had left, he wanted to see his beloved roses bloom one more time. He wanted the tallest live Christmas tree, exuding the fragrant odor of pine, and the linen napkins and good silver and crystal and china (which we rarely used) on the table for Christmas dinner. He wanted to hear Bob Dylan’s gravelly voice and Eric Clapton’s bluesy guitar. He didn’t stop smoking and he didn’t stop drinking.
He still considered Marlboros and Chivas Regal old friends despite the damage they’d done in his life and besides, it was too late to undo that damage now, so they’d carry on together till the end. He wanted to see our son turn one year older. He got his Christmas wishes, but he didn’t quite make it to the birthday or the roses.
For a while, I did as he said and really looked and then eventually, I didn’t. You can hitchhike for a while on someone else’s experience but the ride doesn’t take you to your own destination.
Still, sharing the sheriff’s success makes me think of what I’d like to accomplish in my own life. For a while, I’m more motivated than usual, more committed to doing what needs to be done to achieve my own goals — and, for a while, to thinking of my husband and remembering to really look.
Vicki Williams is a columnist for the Pharos-Tribune. She can be reached through the newspaper at ptnews@pharostribune.com
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