He's still funny as Hell, even beat to piss, his insides churned up, brain addled, rattled and thrown into drug-induced cognitive dissaray.
Seven ribs busted. Spleen? In a jar or the Biohazard refuse bin. One lung? Fully functioning. The other? Multiple punctures and lacerations (those little membranes heal remarkably well, however). The bend but don't break defense manifest in a human body.
Between the Caddyshack quotes, semi-lucid comments on the merrits of good gin and the continuation of sentences paused then continued after a few minutes hiatus to pain and druggy-land, the truth would come out.
We were there. Good, fine, hunky-dory. We were the middle relievers just holding the game together before the closer was warmed up and ready to go. His wife and children were on their way.
He had seen his children briefly Sunday evening - the accident was Saturday. He hadn't seen his wife since the lake.
It all gets upset and thrown to shambles when a good friend breaks the routine I've set for myself, with very little variation, for months on end.
In a hospital I realize that things aren't always as they seem. I'm forced to remember there are people ailing, being born, dying every moment of every day. It sounds trite in my head now, writing it down, but there is something powerful here. Powerful in the sense we are only a few degrees from each other. We're connected.
I'm asleep at 11:30 PM most nights - have been for up to 2.5 hours. But not that night. I was driving home from visiting with friends and giving them an update as to our injured commrade's status. It is what I'd want, and what I'd expect and what I know happened in a similar situation not too long ago - when it happened to me.
I stepped off a plane with my wife in child in San Francisco two days later and was struck again by the fury and swiftness of life going on around me while I'm normally at my desk at work, pounding away about some item or another. Open your eyes, things are going on around you.
From me, to my neighbors, to my city, to my region, to my country, to my world.
Then the memory struck me again: I'd been back a week, the moon was full, my windows down on a late Spring night. The jet lag was starting to wear off. My "new friends" were flip side. It was near midnight and for them, it was almost noon. Then thinking about my buddy from home and his girlfriend in Germany ... How many hours there? And the people on the plane I came home on ... where are they now?
When his girls and wife finally showed up with his brother-in-law, the relief was evident on his face. We made a quick exit, telling him we'd see him soon and to get better.
It's been a week since I've visited and he's still in the hospital. A blood clot behind his knee is contemplating things - his release date not yet estabilished.
I'm back to thinking outside of myself. Remembering what it is like on my beach in Hawaii, in the hospital rooms, at the camps and around the world.
