The Giver

Do you know him?

Have you gotten old enough to flirt with mortality? It doesn’t necessarily come from getting older. It could happen at any age. Let’s take a look.

There came a Y in the road he knew was coming, but he never knew when. I don’t think he thought about it much until it came, when he never suspected it. There was too much and too many friends and family to worry about. He had no time to worry about him; He was just fine. It got him this far.

He had accidents and flu-like events his whole life. He always seemed to come out of it all right, never wondering about the outcome. It would be over soon. How did he get here?

He still had this memory when he was seven years old. His hot-headed friend Nicky had gotten hot-headed and had angrily thrown a broken broomstick at him. He turned right into it, stabbing him in the eye. He had anger, and then the shock made him vomit. He woke up to that Hollywood scene, looking up at a bright light, blinding his ability to recognize the people’s shadows surrounding that shining light. How did he get here?

Remember your first night in a hospital? My right eye was injured. It was bleeding behind my eyeball. They put me in a blind fold to protect the other eye? Shit can get dramatic when your young son could be blind for life. Mom would sit with me and cry the whole time. When I got older, I wondered if she was crying about me being blind or the guilt of it happening on her watch. She was busy a lot. My Dad came into the room and asked if I wanted a fudgecycle. Well yea! He says, there’s an ice cream machine down the hall. If you can find it, I’ll buy you one. It seemed to take forever, and then there were the bruises, adding up, from running into objects that didn’t move.

He said he never thought about being blind. That fudge cycle's icy, creamy taste finally motivated him to keep trying to run into the right machine. The doctors decided the injured eye had to go, to save the good eye. He said that was the first time he questioned a doctor's decision-making ability. On the morning of the removal, God stepped in and stopped the bleeding, and he kept the eye.

That would be the last time David stayed in a hospital by himself. The rest of his life, he stayed for somebody else. He felt he was the best person standing over a loved one lying in a hospital bed, and he was more motivated to make sure this loved one could get the best treatment in such a predicament. He had what was best for his patient more than anyone else, because he was determined he could decide in their best interest, not his or anybody else’s. He would have good luck with this frame of mind. He never lost anybody. He would push them out of that hospital in the customary wheelchair and take them home. David was no hero. He was wired that way. He never felt worse off than someone else. Some took his manner as selfish or delusional. He was just lucky, but he had a reasonable success rate. It's too bad his personal life didn’t quite have the same success. He loved getting married.

Recalling the life of David could be put into a couple of simple sayings he had about how he was doing. This one was from the Dude. “Well, there are strikes and spares, with a gutter ball here and there.” His other stolen quip came from Crash. “We got balls and strikes, and if you were to hit one more Texas leaguer every 10 times at bat? You could make it to the hall of fame.”

One time, Dave went diving in the clear blue water of Cozumel. I guess he wasn’t paying attention to where he was going, and something swiped across his head. He didn’t think much of it until he came out of the water. People were screaming at him on shore. He did feel out of sorts. He looked down at the reflection in the water, and half of his scalp was ripped off. He took hold of his skin, flopped back on his skull, and swam to shore. Great way to start his vacation. A young doctor who looked like he didn’t finish high school spent a long time carefully cleaning Dave’s wound, applying a dozen stitches, wrapping it up, and Dave was on his way. The stitches were more than an inch apart, so Dave could move his skin back and forth like he was adjusting his hat. He ended up with a scar from his forehead over the top of his giant bald spot down behind the back of his ear. He swears the Krakken had caused this scar, which was a map to a buried treasure. Dave will pursue this quest when he gets with Indiana Jones to help him find where to start. Once again, Dave had dodged a bullet and survived to see another 20 years.

Dave had reached 70. He was still trying to help his friends and family through their lives. He was happy with what he was doing, but he still had dreams. Things he never got to do. Dave still felt pretty good, but 70 is a mind bender. For the first time in his life, planning for the next 20 years had so many serious roadblocks.

A couple of months after Dave’s 70th birthday, he was headed to get a physical and had some pain in his right foot. The physical was fine, and the doctor agreed the foot pain was a case of gout. He gave Dave 10 steroids to take two a day. Dave went home that Wednesday and started taking his prescription until Sunday. The pain was better, but far from gone. He called the Doctor’s office and requested more prednisone to cure his foot. The nurse told him it takes two days to get back to me. Dave explained the medicine was gone, and he shouldn’t interrupt a time-sensitive drug like steroids. The nurse was true to her word and called back Thursday afternoon, and gave Dave a new drug to take for gout, which would fix the pain. By Saturday morning, the pain in Dave’s foot had improved, but he didn’t feel good. He got worse by the hour. He couldn’t hold his head up, so he took a nap. Three hours later, Dave woke up shivering. He was lying in a puddle of sweat that turned cold from the ceiling fan. He went to the bathroom, and his urine had blood in it. Any ‘normal’ person would have gone to the Hospital emergency room. Dave isn’t normal.

Dave had lost all faith in healthcare over the last five years. The Pandemic and the vaccine made to cure it were the last straw. Since the vaccine came out, Dave started losing friends who were his age and younger. All the friends were as healthy as he was. The deaths were sudden, with no pre-diagnosed illnesses. Studies coming from countries like Japan and New Zealand are frightening.

Dave needed to talk to Dave, but Dave wasn’t there. He had prepared for this moment for years. Dave has a stash of medicine he has collected over the years. He had plenty of antibiotics. Does he go to the emergency room with a 20% chance they will kill him, or start taking antibiotics and trust his intuition? What about his family? What about his dreams? He is fucking 70. The fear of dying was standing at his door. Dave had researched this moment. If you keep antibiotics in a cool place, they won’t get too old. You can’t overdose on them. He took 4 pills over 2 hours and passed out.

The morning came, and Dave was still here. So was his fever and bloody urine. He felt different. He had a dream.

When he passed out, his dream started right where he was lying. The ceiling was gone, and a flock of birds circled above him. There stood a man next to the bed.

“Are you God?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“Who are you?”

“I’m here to answer any questions on your mind.”

“Who the hell are you?” I got louder.

“ My name is kind of long, but I go by ‘Pergo’ like the spaghetti sauce, only spelled wrong,” he mumbled. “ You’ve got some decisions to make, Dave. I’m here to help you answer them.”

“Am I going to die?”

“Good start,” says Pergo. “Maybe, it’s kind of up to you. Do you feel any pain right now?”

“No, not really. I have a lot of emotion in my head.”

“Oh, I forgot to tell you. Those birds above you? They are your emotions. Some of the birds want to have you for lunch. The rest want more time with you, alive,” he said.

“I feel an intense guilt. Things I’ve done and haven’t made good on them,” I sadly admitted.

“ That’s the highlight of lunch. Guilt is the tenderest part of the meat,” says Pergo.

“What about my decision to medicate myself?”

“Well, Dave, that is why you have a choice,” Pergo says with a smirk, “You need to make up your mind, I’m a busy guy.”

“What about the birds up there who want me back. Maybe they changed their mind.”

“That does happen more often than not. In your case, the birds who want to eat you for lunch always did. The rest want you back.”

“What if I want to come back?” I muttered

“Keep doing what you’re doing. The big guy seems to like what you do,” Prego says, as he begins to leave.

Then Dave woke up. Still felt like shit. Tells his wife he had a really weird dream.

“What was this guy like?” she asked

It’s never too late to realize your dreams.

Don’t ask Dave.