Men With Canes

What is the last thing you learned?

Yesterday I was in the market and I saw an elderly couple turn toward an aisle. The woman kept a pace that the man could not match. He was pushing the cart, and his cane was inside the cart, which he had to push with both hands. I was almost behind him as I passed the aisle, headed for checkout.

I said, “Hello, sir. How are you today?”

He paused and answered, “Okay, how are you?” His voice made me stop. Usually, people have exchanges like this, and as such, I would have said, “Fine, thank you, sir. Have a good day.” I would have moved on quickly. Well, I would have kept going, but not quickly. I, too, use a cane. He raised the handle of his and said, “I’m about to…” I couldn’t make out the rest, but his voice when he answered my query as to how he was held some quality of gratitude. An almost lonely tone turned to joy that someone had noticed and greeted him. Here was a man who knew little happiness. I get fast with that kind of perception; I myself know how it feels all too well. I try to put on a good show in public, though, as being positive for a few minutes doesn’t cost me anything, and it can, on occasion, make others feel better. Thinking that I have done that, well, in my life, which I’ve told you has been so full of pain? Making someone feel cared for, happy, or positive, those things give and have given me the most positive and good feelings I’ve ever known. With my children gone, if I have nothing else, nobody else, then showing kindness is good medicine.

I asked the man, “You wanna race?”

He chuckled but said sadly, “Not today.”

“You have a nice day, sir,” I said, and with a lighter voice, he said, “Thank you. You, too.”

It took seconds. I knew, though, that his wife hadn’t heard the exchange. I think that made a difference to him. I don’t believe that she has much patience with him.

I’ll never forget him. Ever. I finally did get wet cheeks later, the good kind of tears that only come when something special, however slight or brief, takes place between people.

I wonder what he’s like. What life has done to him. I know he’s in pain on the outside, but I doubt that others ever notice his emotional pain or question where it comes from. These are things others shield themselves from, and that’s a crying shame. It shouldn’t be like that.

But it is.

I’ve made the unforgivable mistake many times of taking the silence of others personally. Whenever I did, I regretted it. Mostly because I was wrong most of the time. So, I’ve developed the determination of being patient and waiting for the right moment, then initiating a quick conversation. I usually just ask, “How are you?” I don’t know how, but most can sense that my question is not casual: I really want to know the answer. I want to hear it. And I’ll gladly listen to complaints, stories, recent experiences, anything. I’m sincerely interested. I care.

The fact is, being an asshole is easy, but the price is too high. I remember 8th grade at a junior high school in Pasadena, Maryland. I was in drawing and painting class. On the first day, we had to do a still life. Pencil work was old stuff to me. I remember there was a propped up guitar with no strings as part of the composition, but not the rest. The teacher, whose name escapes me (although I do remember others), walked around the classroom, checking out our work. When he got to me, he cried, “Farm out!” It was good. Really good. A girl across from me at the next table asked me to hold it up and show her.

At that time, I was nothing but a shy (more like petrified and socially dysfunctional) abused little kid who hated compliments and praise. I hated myself. I couldn’t imagine deserving notice or praise.

Her name was Nancy St. Cyr, a beautiful girl with flaming red hair, and I certainly couldn’t talk to pretty girls. I said, “Go someplace,” which was ’70s politically correct slang for ‘Go to Hell.’

The incredibly intense hurt was shown instantly in her eyes, replaced by hate in seconds. She never spoke to, nor looked at, me again, which still grieves me to this day. Once done, an act of brutality, in word or deed, may never be forgiven. I did not blame her. I still don’t. But I’d give anything to be able to apologize. We just don’t get a lot of second chances, especially when we’re assholes.

I don’t know if God ever forgave me. Sometimes, we cause so much pain that we wonder about that. It is a hurt for us that can’t be healed.

This may make you wonder if I’m a bit more kind and sensitive now because I feel the need to do penance. Well, of course I feel the need, but that’s not why. I got sick of being a cause of pain. I’ve been in pain since I can remember riding in a stroller. Pain. Terror. Then CPTSD because abuse leaves weeping, open wounds that cannot be healed until God brings us back with new bodies. I don’t know much about forgiveness, but I do believe that God counts our every tear, hears every cry of pain, and every prayer. In the meantime, I can’t take my own sins away by doing anything. I just know I need to get back to the narrow road that I left so long ago. I also know that won’t make my life any better. I’ll still be in pain. I’ll still have the regrets of the past. I’ll still remember Nancy St. Cyr and her look of pain. Of all the people I’ve hurt since 8th grade, I don’t remember one of them looking at me like that.

But I’m small, and my part of this universe is too tiny to measure.

Out there. In the world. It is horrible. People do things that others can scarce imagine. A decent person does not have the capacity to picture war crimes. Crimes against humanity. Slavery or mass murder. The constant horror of being terrorized.

It’s all happening right now. It has never stopped. It won’t stop until God’s intervention happens.

But there is still kindness. There is still decency. In a conversation between two old men in a grocery store, with one showing respect, interest, and sincere care to another, there is more that is holy than there is in five years of Joel Osteen’s “sermons.”

Keep the faith. When it is weak, seek the crepuscule: that short time of the day after sunset but before dark, when the reds, oranges, yellows, and purples are painted just above the horizon and a hush seems to fall around you as the day gets closer to leaving.0

The day may hold stress, the night loneliness, but twilight is like God saying, “You like my painting tonight? Remember when you were in art class? It’s okay. It’s going to be okay, so don’t forget me.”

I’m about to turn an age I never thought I’d ever see. And unlike the song, I have no worries about being fed or needed. It’ll just be another day.

I’m fine with that. Because that means I’ll do something nice for someone. I just learned that. I can be nice any time I want to. Whether you want to or not is up to you. I have had enough of dealing out pain. I have too many ghosts for that. I can’t make them go away, but God willing, I won’t pick up any more.

The Big Red Machine

Sometimes, in this rotten world, we have a little bit of power. Not just the rich, or the famous, but all of us. If we just let ourselves be ourselves, that power can be used. We don’t know when it will happen. We usually won’t know when it’s happening. In the most unfair way, we won’t always even get to know what happened afterward. Have you ever, just in being yourself and treating another kindly or maybe just in being friendly in a casual way, stopped after the fact and wondered, Did I help that kid?

Usually, we don’t. We ask ourselves why we bothered in the first place or we just plain forget it. It’s nothing, right?

Well, here’s an example of someone who was conscious of what he was doing, his true person showing in full view, with no reservations, and made a difference. Watch:

Kane, a.k.a. “The Big Red Machine” was a wrestler in the WWE who wore a mask and flame-themed costume. A big man, he was sometimes billed as the most feared wrestler in the WWE, formerly the WWF. His back story involved him being burned, hence the mask and red costume. He was a heavyweight and a badass, but I knew that the actor inside was a good guy. A good man.

The next time you have a chance to show that good side of yourself to someone, and it may seem like a small thing, do it. No matter how small, do it anyway.

It is always worth it, I promise you. And if we are allowed to hear about it, you’ll honor and give hope to jaded men like me.

Thanks to whoever shared this. You made my day.

And Kane, thank you.

New York City Confidential: The Visit

Warning: The following contains graphic and disturbing material and it contains triggers. This is intended for mature readers only and must be read with caution.

Present Day

In a hospital somewhere in the Big Apple lies a young man near the end of his life.

It is just another day in the city that never sleeps: the patient will, without a miracle, die. And it will not matter, nor even be known, to any but the handful of doctors and nurses treating and tending to him.

And one earthly angel who knows how beautiful he truly is.

Because they adore him, these nurses. He is mostly silent, but despite his condition, despite his loneliness, his sadness, he is polite and warm.

And on any given hospital floor or ward, patients like him always seem to affect one nurse, perhaps more. In this case, more. He received no visitors.

There came no calls inquiring as to his condition or prognosis. No one cared. Nurses tend to feel at least some sorrow or anger over such things. For some, their necessity of a disconnect fails. No one should be left alone to face death.

And it did look bad; his kidneys had failed. His recovery from a coma was a great development, but the young man was in critical condition. He still is. He had HIV or AIDS before, but treatment had made the virus undetectable in his lab work. Then he contracted COVID-19 and the virus returned. Now, but for the Grace of God, he would already be dead.

But who knows? Perhaps God keeps the dying alive for a reason, because there remains a chance that they can find peace before death. And, just maybe, He plans on a miracle because He loves us all, equally, and does not want us to perish in the Pit.

I cannot say, but without speaking for God, I nevertheless have faith in His unfailing love and forgiveness.

If ever a young man needed a miracle, it’s surely this young man.

His story begins in Texas, where far too many horrible stories seem to start.

His father was the pastor of a church, and his mother was a nurse. Neither should have been so employed, for the father was far more evil than good, and the mother was his carbon copy.

His father the preacher man sodomized him while his mother held him down.

She held him down.

And there is more. When he came out as gay, his father called him a “faggot” and beat him. Whether he was kicked out or ran away is unclear but it does not matter.

Eventually the young man wound up in New York. In his ears it must have reverberated, his father, who routinely sodomized him, calling him a “faggot”. The damage was no doubt extensive. There is no reason given for his attraction to New York, but many gay men move there, most seeking acceptance and some type of human compassion.

But for him, if ever he found it, nothing good could last. Haunted by his past, he could not find lasting friendship nor any other relationship. At one point he wound up in a mental health facility. It is easy to see why. What is more difficult to see is that some part of him, despite loneliness and severe depression, wanted help, wanted to survive.

While he was there, a young woman was also a patient. She had clearly been through a hell of her own, and she was still in it. He decided to not only befriend her but to watch over her as well. And this he did, because his own broken heart hurt even more to see someone trying to fight back from a break, from loss, from addiction, from too much time spent hounded by demons.

The two bonded, improving over time, each very much a part of the other’s recovery. Then, she went home, and although they exchanged phone numbers, and did talk from time to time, the miracle girl he had watched over began getting very serious about finishing her recovery.

The system of replacement therapy is rigged, as I’ve said before. Rigged to keep you dependent on methadone so the clinic keeps getting funded. She emerged from a life-threatening breakdown to realize that the only way to regain her life and her soul was to fight the battle of a lifetime. And she argued with the clinic about stepping down her doses. They would alternatively encourage and discourage her and, with most, that strategy of manipulation works.

But the young woman was never going to be tricked again by the system that would not let her go.

Consulting a doctor not affiliated with the clinic, she did receive support, but also caution. Yet, in all his years of practice, he had never seen anyone so determined who might actually be able to do what she claimed she could, and would do.

Just like she said, exactly as she had said, she stepped down her doses rapidly. The clinic fought her but she was not having it. Finally she had had enough, and got her intake of methadone so low that despite her doctor’s concern, she ceased taking it. Silencing every critic and every rule of the system, what she did would not seem astounding to you or to me, but for her it was the drug equivalent of jumping from a second story window, landing as gracefully as a gymnast, and getting the winning score. And her doctor was astonished. What she had done, in the time in which she did it, with no lasting effects, was something he had never seen before. He was proud, but not of anything he had done; it was all her, she who possessed the fighting spirit of a tigress.

And that analogy is not off: a tigress is among the fiercest fighters in the animal kingdom, an apex predator with almost no fear of humans. The young woman had put up a fight, the like of which few have ever survived.

That fight was not short nor did it come without pain.

She continues to fight. Every day. But the entire time she was suffering, prayers came from all directions including her priest, who lit the tapirs and said the rosary in her behalf.

Her past was known to the priest. A violent multiple rape while a young teen. Comfort sought in hard drugs. Dysfunctional relationships that only lowered her closer to the abyss. Until death and shock and trauma piled upon trauma broke her and she met the lonely young man in the hospital.

She had lost her way. Lost everything she was, everything she thought she knew. The lonely man was there to help her get that back. These things are never chance meetings. God knows when two lost people need each other. He leads them to the quiet waters but never forces them to drink. That’s always up to them.

I always found in my worst stays in hospital that there was one person I could be comfortable around. It’s funny, that. And it always helps.

But as time went on, the young woman began grabbing her life back. An awesome man came into her life and a romance began. She made fast friends with his family and his friends. She had begun to live after decades of being a prisoner.

Then came a day when she found an unknown number on her phone. A number she did not recognize. Usually she would let such a thing go, but not this one. She felt strongly about it and knew she had to return the call.

It was the lonely man she had been watched over by in the hospital and he’d come out of a three-week coma and was very weak. It was difficult to speak because of the tube he had been sustained by, but she knew: he needed to see her and she needed to go to him.

Her boyfriend made a stop along the way, took her to the hospital, but because of covid protocols had to remain in the car.

Upstairs, the lonely man lay, withered, 60 pounds lighter, weak, fearing death. His friend walked up to the nurse’s station and one nurse smiled and said, “I’m so happy to see you. He’s had no one come in or even call and he’s so sweet.”

She went into the room, greeted him, and had to lean close to hear him. Clad in protective gloves, mask and gown, she listened.

He said he was happy that she was here. She gave him the stuffed unicorn she had bought on the way over. He loved it. Bending low she heard him say, “I’m scared of dying. I’m scared I’ll go to hell.”

She assured him that it wasn’t true. He would not go to hell. God knew the kindness of his heart, and would never allow such a kind soul to descend to the pit.

She asked him if he would like to talk to the priest they had both met before. He said yes, he would, and he seemed comforted by the suggestion. She said she would get the priest to come and see him.

After a few more moments that I will leave private, he thanked her for remembering him, for answering his call, and said, “I think I can sleep now.”

Before leaving home, someone had asked her why she had to go see this guy. “Because,” she said, “he’s my friend. He looked after me and protected me, and now he needs me.” It wasn’t about owing him or feeling obligated; it was love that drove this extraordinary woman to go. And nothing on this earth is more powerful than love.

This truly heartbreaking story is also a reminder to us all that no act of kindness, no show of friendship and loyalty ever goes unnoticed by God or under-appreciated by those we give the kindness to. We were given a command: love each other. When we fail, things happen that hurt. When we do it, the world is better for it. You and I may not feel it, but I know it’s the truth.

Have a great week, and God bless.