It has been some time since I last posted to my blog and
much has happened in my life. I
have unfortunately lost some functioning again and need the chair more often
than not these days.
I went for my evaluation at outpatient rehabilitation and
received the referral needed to get back into the pool for aquatic physical
therapy. I was not surprised at my
functioning level, but there were a few times that she was pleasantly surprised
at what functioning I did still have.
She was right after all. At
one time walking again did not seem possible with the amount of nerve damage
and I can still hear the echoes of the doctor’s words who first told me
so.
What a great feeling though, she was pleased with what I
could do. This gave a great surge
to my optimism and thus my strength.
This surge was much needed.
Following this my sister came into town so we could attend
the wake of a friend’s mother together.
I drove, I can still do that physically, however I did go in the complete
opposite direction. After many
anxious moments in traffic, snow and rural darkness we did eventually find our
destination. That is when things
went down hill.
After circling the nice big old funeral home three times it
was still unclear where I should enter the building. After a short discussion we decided that she would go in and
ask how does one enter the building if they require a wheelchair. She gets out, hikes down her short
skirt, brushes herself off and walks toward the front stairs in her two-inch
pumps through the snow bank. About
one minute later she is headed back to the car shaking her head. She opens the door and as she is
sitting down she says, “we have to go around back and there is a door where
they bring the dead bodies in, we need to go there.”
I ask her to repeat herself and she acknowledged my
confusion, stated go around back and we will follow the smell of
formaldehyde. We pulled around and
I parked in front of a three-car garage.
It was dark with very little outside lighting. We were discussing where the door might
be when all of a sudden one of the garage doors opened. A man in a suit appeared and stated
that we could follow him. I
wheeled between two hearses and we headed for the back of the building. As we approached the rear of the
building the man took a left and opened a door. He gestured that we enter and as we did I noticed on the
wall in front of me was a Hazardous Materials sign. In big red letters was a warning about formaldehyde
poisoning.
To my left was a rudimentary style lift that was used to
bring the bodies up to the viewing area.
He again gestured, indicating that we get on the lift. I carefully rolled myself onto the
lift, not sure where to stop because there were no guidelines or security
modifications. After all it was
not made for the living. The whole
thing felt rickety and as the three of us slowly went up, my sister asked “So
do you have to do this often?”
The response, “All the time.”
As I sat pondering his statement the opening to the viewing area
came into sight. There was no more
time to think about this, it was time to focus on our friend and her enormous
loss. We stayed until it was
appropriate to leave and give the family some time alone.
My sister went to find the funeral home attendant because we
had no idea how to get out of the building. The two of them returned and I followed them back into the
other room. He removed several
chairs away from what appeared to be a wall. He opened a door to revel the lift we had come in on.
As I rolled back out toward my car past all the inner
workings of a funeral home, I began to process what had just happened. We got in the car and headed somewhere
we could get a good meal and catch up.
As we pulled into one of my favorite places in Quincy to
grab a great meal and headed for the reserved parking, I had to stop the
car. I could not believe my eyes,
there have been several times the spaces were full but not like this. There in the three reserved spots for
the disabled was the snow that had been plowed from the parking lot. Outraged we decided to park illegally
and go in for dinner. However, the
wait was longer than our stomachs could handle so we headed somewhere else, my
new favorite place to grab a great meal.
We pulled up and right out front we found a cleared reserved
spot. She went to the back of the
van and in her high heels all 120lbs of her pulled my wheelchair out and she brought
it to me to put together. As I
wheeled up the ramp someone opened the door and brought us right to a table. The place was nearly empty but we
already knew the food was great so it was just fine with us. I love it when there is someone there
refilling my water glass as needed.
When you talk as much as I do you go through a lot of water.
We stayed and while enjoying our meal discussed the evenings
highlight, our scary elevator ride.
We talked about how normal we were about it, like this was everyday
practice for me when entering a building.
We just went along with him and used our best manners. We behaved as if we did not want to
embarrass him. We also talked
about how he should be embarrassed.
We talked about the spooky back room and the unorthodox handicapped
entrance. The more we talked the
more we laughed about life and enjoying the good it has to offer. As we laughed she all of a sudden got
serious and said, “It is good you can laugh. If you don’t laugh you’ll cry,
right.”
I agreed and toasted to
her thought.
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee,
And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.~Robert Frost, "Cluster of Faith," 1962
