A Little Progress

I actually met him once, a long time ago, introduced by a mutual friend, who has filled me in on the major events of his life in periodic reports through the years. My mental picture of him is both fuzzy and about 25 years out of date, like those of other people’s kids who just never grow up in your mind the way your own do, so it’s a shock when you see them again to realize life happens to all of us whether we’re watching or not. To me he remains that tall, lanky, quiet guy, perpetually in his 30s.

He was still single then. In fact, he waited many years into his adult life to find The One, and when he did, it was a powerful thing indeed. They married, found a house, started their lives together as if they had just been half alive until this moment. They had met at work, and continued to work together. There were no children to distract them from each other. They also shared the same passion: muskie fishing. They went fishing together as much as they could, weekends, vacations, different lakes, different fish tales, different years. Every niche, every corner of each other’s lives, they filled. It was as perfect a life as they could wish.

But nothing lasts, especially that kind of bliss. There was breast cancer first, and they fought it together, doing whatever was needful, until they could celebrate when it went away. It brought them closer together, and, relieved by its absence, they resumed their lives. Until, that is, the brain cancer struck. It was found late, and fight as they did, there was really no hope. Suddenly she was gone.

He was completely devastated, as if half of him had been ripped away but he had to keep breathing, keep walking while he was still bleeding all over the floor. Somehow the heart kept beating, the gut kept processing food, not from any will or purpose, but from the sheer stubbornness of life. For years he was in a depression so deep he was immobilized. Pills and a shrink managed to keep him from joining her, either through an overt action or by closing himself off and walling himself away from the world until he could just fade away. He nearly did: he couldn’t work, he couldn’t function. Most of all, he couldn’t fish. There was nowhere left for him to go, nothing left for him to do that didn’t hold memories of her, reminding him of his staggering loss.

What progress that came was slow and agonizing. Eventually he was able to return to work. While he went to the same place, he couldn’t face the old job, the memories of her in every corner, the need to maintain some semblance of normal before all those familiar faces who knew them both back when. He chose to take the night janitor’s job instead. A couple years later he actually went out fishing again. It too wasn’t like before, but he was starting to reclaim some important pieces of his life.

Recently he decided he was ready for female companionship. He wasn’t looking for another wife, or even a simple relationship. Just the struggles of dating were still too much for him. And none of it, after all, would bring Her back, and would likely as not just reopen the wounds and doom the effort. So he came up with a plan.

He would take a vacation to Nevada and pay a visit to the Bunny Ranch. After all, legalized brothels have certain safeguards. There would be no rejection, no wondering if she would like him enough. Of course she would. There would be no entanglements, no recriminations, no abuses, and very little worry about health complications. It was expensive, but it was doable. It should have been very straightforward.

Of course it wasn’t. He was into his “date”, still getting acquainted, when the bug struck. A particularly nasty, unromantic bug, the kind that keeps you in the bathroom, running from both ends. It also puts you in the hospital from dehydration. Actually, he was pretty lucky it hit him while he was with her, because it hit so hard and fast that he needed someone to help him. And she did. Not what they’d both had in mind for the occasion, but simple human kindness goes a long way. An IV drip to rehydrate him, Immodium to stop up one end, and post-chemo anti-nausea drugs for the other, and he was soon back on his feet again, with enough time left in his vacation to complete his plan, at last.

He was beginning to chose life again. In fact, he chose the most quintessential life-affirming act known to man. And that was a little progress, indeed.