COURAGE

I am always interested in life stories.

Here in CBMH I reconnected with a man who I have known all my working life who would look at me in utter disbelief if I told him that I thought he was amazing, but he is.

About forty years ago, as a young working man with a wife and children and a house in the suburbs and a mortgage (and school fees for a private school, and all and all), he was diagnosed with brain cancer.

That’s a personal disaster of the first order. That’s the biggest full-stop on a man’s life that most of us can imagine. And what did his employers do? – They fired him. They probably fired him because they thought he was going to die and they didn’t want a “dead man walking” in the corridoors of their business. To hell with his wife and children, to hell with his hopes and dreams, just get him off the floor.

He did not become a self-pitying, bitter old wreck.

He did not become a pill-popping monster.

He did not become an alcoholic.

He did not become a member of the God Squad.

He stayed on track, put down his head and worked. He set up a private accounting practice from home and just kept moving forwards.

And he beat the damn cancer.

Losing that job was the best thing that could have happened to him.

I lost track of him for a while but eventually we reconnected. By then we were older, and I had also lost my job due to ill-health and I also had to scratch together a living by working with a shadow over my shoulder – we never actually spoke about it but I drew strength from knowing his story. And I discovered that there is a whole sub-group of people out there who just refuse to give up and stay on track and do what must be done. He has a wry, self-deprecating sense of humour which is infectious, and it is part of his strength.

In fact I just want to talk about that strength for a minute.

What is that? He is not a self-conscious hero holding himself out as a model of his kind. Far from it. But he has a quiet faith in himself and those around him. I’ll bet that he’s been through some pretty dark patches but he’s kept himself together very well. No more, and no less.

And so we come to the present, and I find him in the ward next to me in this hospital. The shadow is back, albeit in a different guise and he has a different medical problem.

I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film “Terminator”. There’s this scene where he has a tremendous fight with an adversary, and then he walks away, and then he turns and looks his adversary in the eyes and says “I’ll be back”, and then he leaves. Short, but very effective. 

So the shadow is back.

I hear his voice from my ward. He’s been there for quite a long time. He’s cracking a joke with a nurse. I spoke to a few of the the nurses subsequently. They love him. He’s not one of those nameless, faceless patients who come and go. Everyone knows his name. I doubt whether he has an enemy in the world.

He was discharged two days ago, I’m still here, but PG I’ll be leaving today and we’ve promised to have coffee some time soon, probably at some sunny café on the Sea Point beachfront.

Courage, my friend. 

God goes with you.

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© Harry Friedland  5 August 2022

https://hjfriedland.blogspot.com/