A story of understanding and hope, for those who are carrying the burden of serving others in difficult time.
It’s 12 a.m., I’m awake, and it’s two hours before my alarm is supposed to go off. My throat is sore, my head is congested, and my body is sweating. As my feet hit the bedroom floor it is clear to me that this is more than a sinus infection. I take a long drink of water and walk into the living room. The puppy, who’s not such a puppy anymore, joins me at my feet and curls into a ball on her little dog pad. I don’t sit much in the living room, and I only sit in this chair when I’m recovering from a surgery. Suddenly, I hear the sound of my alarm go off and I wake up in the chair. It’s 2 a.m. I guess I went back to sleep.
Over the next few hours, I only felt worse. I got the first vaccine shot a week prior and wondered if it was the shot that was making me feel so bad. Initially, my bride and I did not see a need for me to get vaccinated because my new job allows me to be alone in the woods. Then, a few weeks ago, my bride suggested I get vaccinated. She said, “I worry the boys will bring the virus home and you will get it and I hate to see you suffer.” I openly joke how my bride is hard as nails, that she is ¾ man and I am ¾ woman, so I was surprised when she stated she hates to see me suffer. After all, it was me that cried at our wedding, and she never shed a tear. I also teach karate to young kids and was worried about giving the virus to them too, so I got the first shot.
Over the next two days my symptoms only increased but I continued to work. After one week and three days since the first shot, I called my family doctor. He is younger than me and we met after he first got out of medical school. I took him shooting a couple of times at the farm. The first time I took him shooting he asked why I offered to take him shooting. I said, “I hope, before you get all caught up in being a doctor you will see us on the table as humans just like you.” He said, with a very confident smile, “I will always serve the Lord first.” Thankfully, my doctor told me I should come in and get tested for the virus.
I pulled into the parking lot of the doctor’s office and parked in some grass under the pine trees because I had a trailer behind my truck. As I sat there listening to classic country, I noticed the older truck, also parked in the grass, that belonged to my doctor. It’s the same truck he’s been driving for over ten years so maybe he is still serving the Lord first. My phone rang and it was a nurse who asked me to walk over alongside the doctor’s office to the brown tent and wait for her there. I asked the nurse, “Besides getting tested could I get a massage and a pedicure?” She laughed and said, “We might be able to get you the massage but not the pedicure.”
I walked over to the tent which looked more like a portable shelter than a tent because there were no walls. As I sat in the tent and looked at the plastic table in conjunction with the shelter, my brain connected back to how we used to camp before we had our cabin. My nervous energy calmed, and my brain told me this was a safe place. If you understand one of the brain’s many functions, it’s to assess the new, fresh, incoming data to prepare you for how to react. The brain does this by trying to connect the new data with old memories. The memories are stored as associative and dissociative memories. For the most part associative being good and dissociative being not so good. I would imagine there are a few experts who would not agree with my very basic explanation, but again I am a simple man. I then looked at the blood pressure cuff on the plastic table and all the other medical stuff. My brain connected to associative memories of being in a hazmat suit and placed under a shelter to have my vitals taken. This was not the safe place that the camping memory was, but it was still a good memory. As my brain continued to process a nurse appeared. She was around my age and very calm. She joked about the massage and took my vitals. She asked if I was prior military and I said yes. She said, “I retired from the military.” Then, a second nurse appeared. She was younger than us, kept her distance, and was not as calm natured as the older nurse. The older nurse administered the test. As soon as she ran the long Q-Tip up my nose, my brain jumped back to an oral surgery I had as a child where they ran long needles up under my upper lip. My heart rate increased, and my brain scrambled to resolve the conflict from within to escape this place. Clearly the long needle was a dissociative memory. The nurses left with the long Q-Tip and said we should have the results in fifteen minutes. I sat on the metal chair and waited for the news.
The fifteen minutes seemed long, and I was tired. At one point, the beat down grass under the shelter called to me. I thought about laying down but figured I would wake up with the nurses thinking I was doing more than sleeping. The large fan under the shelter pulled the smell of pine needles past my nose and for a moment I was in my woods. The noise from the fan kept me from hearing the door open and my doctor appeared. He sat down next to me and said the test was negative. I cannot say I felt a feeling of relief with the news because I doubt the test. As my doctor talked about the possibilities of a false negative test result, I was more focused on him. It had been a year since I last saw him when I needed a shot in my elbow. I had stopped by his office after hours and it was during the height of the virus. We sat for hours in the semi-dark, quiet building and talked about his life. He was living in a trailer on his hunting land to protect his wife, who is immunocompromised, and their children from any possibility of transmitting the virus to them. He talked about seeing them from a distance and how he missed them. He talked about the choices he had to make and the things he had witnessed. When I used to teach people about peer support, I would tell them that there comes a point, if you are open to it, when you can feel another’s pain. As you start to feel their pain, it is your choice to take that ride with them or keep your emotional distance. I have always welcomed the ride. It seems like a very odd statement to make because I know by taking that ride it will knock me down, add weight to my backpack of life, and ultimately change the memories I have for certain things. So why take the ride? Because it gives that person in pain, a moment, to be able to take a break from what ails them. After I take that ride, I feel very blessed to have a system in place for myself where I can go to unload my backpack, pick myself back up, and most of the time, take those altered memories and transform them into words so others will not feel alone.
My doctor listened to my lungs and said I sounded good. He offered something to help with the sinus drainage and continued to type his notes on his laptop. I said, “What can I do for you on the home front.” Before I could finish the last words, he started telling me what to do at home and rambled on. I raised my voice and said, “You are not listening to me. What can I do for you?” He stopped typing and turned his face to me, his eyes looked tired. I could not see the rest of his face with the mask on, but I’m confident his eyes said enough. He said, “I’m good buddy.” I said, “Can I cut your grass?” He said, “I’m good, but thank you.” I said, “This visit was about me, but now it’s about you.” He looked me in the eyes and started to talk. His words were similar to the ones he spoke last year but this time the pain was much more. I took the ride when he said, “This is not exactly what I signed up for.” As I listened, I had been this man more than once in my life. I knew to keep my mouth shut and listen, but I also wanted to interrupt him and reach into his backpack to remove the heavy images that were weighing him down. I knew for now he just needed to let some pressure off the valve of life. I continued to offer my help and he continued to say, “I’m good.” He stood up and said, “If you get worse, call me.” With those words he was gone. I sat there on the metal chair with the fan pushing air on me that felt like I was just hit by a miniature tornado. It was clear I had taken the ride, but all I could do to help him was listen. I realize that sometimes it’s all we can do, but all we can do has never been enough for me. In years past, my doctor would often ask permission to pray for me after my examination. Not really my thing, but it was his thing, so I always said sure. As I walked away from the beat down grass, I realized he did not pray for me.
I spent the rest of the day in the woods. I was tired and my throat hurt but being in the heat and fresh air was the best medicine for my body. After I took the ride with my doctor, my mind is spinning as it tries to dig through my backpack to find a place for the images and emotions that my doctor shared with me. Then, as the old saying goes, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I recalled a time when I felt like my doctor years ago. I had not thought about that night in years. I remembered writing about that about it, but I was not sure if it was in a book or if it was tucked away in my filing cabinet. I continued my work in the woods as my mind flipped through the pages of the stories I had written in the past. When I got home, I looked through the books and then the filing cabinet. In a folder I found the story I had written twenty some odd years ago about the six years I spent living as, and pretending to be, a criminal. We, (Dr. Mitchell and I), never put the story into any of the books we co-wrote because the story, to me, is private. Even though I appear to unravel the fibers of my soul into the written words of this story, I still kept some protected. I realize there are experts who would say I’m holding on to those images and emotions because they are traumatic. I would agree there is some trauma, but we are a judgmental society and I want to be judged by my heart and soul and not by what I had to do.
I read through the story and found the paragraph I was looking for; “It wasn’t long before three years was four years and the toll of living with the criminal element began to wear on me. To that end, I found myself in Father John’s church one night. Father lived next to the church and left it unlocked. I had driven several hours to get there and just wanted to spend some time with God. I wanted God to explain to me why I was called to this profession. Why did I have to live my life like this? As I sat in the candlelit church, the tears that ran from my eyes disappeared into the mass of hair on my face. The hair from my head hung down in front of my eyes and when I looked forward it was like looking through steel bars. The church was very quiet and the only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat. From behind me I heard the door open, and I jumped up. A voice said, “Its ok my friend, you are safe here.” I replied, “It’s me, Father.” Father had not seen me in several years but recognized my voice. He sat down next to me and said, “What brings you here?” I told Father that my life made no sense. I did not want to be this kind of policeman. I did not understand why God gave me the courage and the ability to continue this type of work. Father told me a story of a young man who joined the United States Marine Corps to serve his country. The man did not join the service to kill people in war. God had given this young man great courage and soon he was fighting for his life and those around him. The man rose to the rank of Sergeant, and he continued to serve his country proudly. Even though it was not what the man had planned, he answered his calling. Father told me that I was like the young Marine. I wanted to be a police officer and I became a police officer. Then, some of those I worked with saw potential in me to be an undercover police officer. God had a plan for me and I answered the calling. Father said, you are serving your country and you are fighting an important battle right here in our homeland. Father asked if I wanted to know what happened to the young Marine. I said yes. The young Marine came home from the war and finished his tour of duty and became a priest. Father John was a United States Marine before he was a priest. I asked Father why he never told anyone he was a Marine? Father said, sometimes people have trouble understanding military service and sometimes it is easier to keep it to yourself. Father said that many in our society view our military members as a necessary evil; they do a job that needs to be done, but they do not like how it’s done and struggle to see it as a job with nobility. Father ended with, there are those who would view your police job in the same fashion. I left the church feeling better and within hours returned to the smoke-filled rooms that had become my home.”
It had been a long time since I read that paragraph, but the memory of that moment in time was as fresh as could be. I thought about my doctor and how many times in life we cannot see the fine print that lies on the road ahead. I thought about his pain and how all I could do was listen. As the days passed since my appointment and taking the ride with my doctor, my body seemed to heal from whatever I had contracted, but my emotions were still in that tornado. I sent a text to my doctor and asked him to send me a picture of the portable shelters outside his office, but he never asked why. Once the words formed in my head, I could not write fast enough. I wanted to give a message to him and all the others who find themselves asking why and are unable to see the fine print on the road ahead.
In my old job, I had dreamt of becoming a certified fire investigator for years before I finally became one. I liked the idea of figuring out the puzzle of a fire, the physical work involved, and just being outside. I never read or saw the fine print where I would have to place those who die in fires into a body bag. I never read or saw the fine print that said I would have to dig through fire debris in search of smaller human bones. On my first fatal fire scene, a mother, and a daughter, I found myself back in that church with Father John. As I placed them in the body bags, I could hear Father John’s words from that night. From that first fatal fire to the last fatal fire, I could always hear his words. Now it’s time for me, a simple man, to give our health care workers a message.
I think, to a point, we are designed to handle and process trauma, but not back-to-back or day to day. My heart has always broken for the paramedics who go from one scene to the next and never get a moment to sort through their backpack. By the time they end their shift, their backpack is so heavy it’s any wonder they can walk. Over the last year our health care workers have been hammered by something that does not seem to take a break. My bride is in the health care business and when the virus first hit, she was gone emotionally, physically, and mentally for several months. She apologized more than once, but I too am guilty of all the above. I wish I could say there is an answer or a quick fix to lighten your backpack. I wish I could say the fine print is there, but somehow, we just never seem to see it. I know what it’s like to sit on a sofa at 3 a.m. and feel alone, yet our home is full. I know what it’s like to sit in a crowded room and feel alone. I have spoken publicly about it and have written about it more than once. Isolation in your thoughts is the beast. Though I prefer to not be in crowds, I am not isolated in my thoughts. If my written words do not lessen the load in your backpack, then I would recommend you join together with those that wear the scrubs and join your thoughts. My friend and coauthor, Dr. Jeff Mitchell, designed a program just for this thought joining process. He does not refer to it in those terms, but I do. His program is called Critical Incident Stress Management. I don’t normally promote things one way or another, but what I’m simply trying to convey to you is that the only way to beat any force is to join together.
For those of us sitting on the examination table or in a temporary shelter, it’s time we step up and take the ride with our health care workers. It’s time to empathize, that just maybe, there was no fine print on this one. It’s time we realize that after they see us, there are twelve more waiting, and all the while they are still trying to process the two that died last night. They are still wondering and second guessing what they could have done differently to have saved those two lives. It’s time we just cut their grass rather than asking. It’s time we stand in front of the hospital on a hot day and hold a sign that says, “thank you.” It’s time we break out the crockpot and throw a bunch of junk in it and deliver a homemade meal to those who just want this nightmare to end.
After a fire many years ago, I stood on a dirt road with my co-worker who I called the black guy. Why? Because he is black. As the sun started to come up, I realized we had been standing there for hours talking about those days when I lived with the criminal element. He never asked a question, he just listened. I often wonder why I opened up to him on that early morning. Maybe because we have seen and done things that were not in the bold print of a job description. Maybe because I knew he would not judge me, or just maybe because he listened. No matter the reason, I love the man he is and the last time I saw him he hugged me and said, “I will always be your black guy.”
The title to the story written twenty some odd years ago was called “The Men Behind the Mask.” Maybe it was never published because it was not its time. There was a time when I wore a mask to protect my identity from the evil I was trying to stop. Then, I wore a mask to protect that part of my life from those who would judge me. To this day, I still wear a mask. In my new job most do not know about my previous job or my written words to complete strangers. I want people to accept me for who I am, not where I have been. If I had my choice there would be no name with anything I write.
For all of the health care workers that are wearing the mask and tending to our sick, thank you from a simple man. I’m sorry I do not have an answer to this one. I know most of the dissociative memories that were in my backpack years ago have slowly been processed to associative. Being able to process memories from dissociative to associative is something that takes time. Sometimes it takes an expert, an open ear, a song, or in my case written words to complete strangers. I also feel we must accept the fine print after it has found its way to us. Though it may not have been what brought us to that job, it is what brought us to that calling.
I realize the mask protects you from an evil you cannot see, but I also realize it hides the pain you feel. As I type these last words, the ride with my doctor is now over. The song that plays in my head as I type these final words is called “Mercy Now” by Mary Gautier. She does a much better job saying in a song than what I have written above. For those of you who are still on that ride, my heart will stay broken until your mask is removed. I hope that one day you will find a dirt road where you can share your story with someone who will listen.
