So I was feeling pretty smug this morning, trotting around the park, having dropped off the fat-loss plateau to the tune of another 1.5 pounds. Coming into the home stretch of Mile 3, I see a plump lady gamely running through the early morning heat. She has another 30 pounds to go, I figure.
Nya nya! I’ve only got 9.4 pounds left to shed!
Ahead of me I spot another woman, a large woman with a terrible limp — looks like she might have injured a hip that never healed up right, or maybe she has a birth deformity that’s nearly got her crippled. She’s a tough gal; she’s not giving up, but wrestles herself along the sidewalk with a twisting, rolling gait that must be exhausting to sustain for any length of time. My guess: 40 to 50 pounds overweight.
Thank God I don’t have to deal with that much fat!
As I come abreast to pass her, she pauses to gasp for breath, so we see each other face to face for the first time. And…my god!
It’s not a woman!
It’s a boy. He looks to be about 13 years old. Holy mackerel! The overweight probably derives from a combination of the injury or birth defect, mean classmates who make him feel inferior, and lots of computer gaming.
Baby boy, what happened to you?
Of course one doesn’t vocalize any such question. Instead, I smile vaguely and proceed around him at speed.
Forthwith I reach the end of the three-lap park circumnavigation and am flying up the feeder street toward home. At the corner, in front of the house that always has all the gay decorations at Christmas, I see a lady in a bright pink bathrobe, sitting on the ground by her garden.
She says something softly, and it takes a second to realize what she’s said is “help me!”
She’s fallen on the ground, evidently trying to get the newspaper.
I ask her if she’s hurt. She says she’s not, but would I help her get up.
She’s as tall as I am, but so frail and wasted she looks tiny. Under the bathrobe, she’s wearing an adult diaper that looks like it’s wet.
I take her hands while she struggles to get her feet under her. We try to get her upright, but it doesn’t work. She’s too heavy for me to lift, and she’s too weak to pull herself upright.
I say, “We’d better call 911.”
She says, “Get my husband.”
“Is he inside the house?”
“Yes.”
“What’s his name?”
“Chuck.”
I stick my head inside the front door and holler for Chuck.
No answer. The house is neat as a pin, spotless, and odorless. But other than that clue (this lady obviously couldn’t keep house at all, much less maintain a house and yard to perfection), there’s no sign of anyone else in the house. Maybe he’s still in bed.
I enter the home, still calling his name, and walk down the hallway toward the bedrooms.
Silence.
A closed door. I knock on it and call his name a couple more times.
Just as I’m thinking the woman is confused and only imagines her husband is still with her, he calls out from behind the door, “What is it?”
When I explain that his wife has fallen out front and that I’m not physically strong enough to lift her, he says he’ll be right there. Evidently this is not the first time.
A compact, fit-looking man, he appears to be in his early 80s. He hurries outside.
On the grass by the sidewalk he kneels beside his wife and caresses her face.
This is a man of extraordinary kindness, loyalty, and grace. He speaks quietly to her, and then he manages to haul her to her feet. The trick, it develops, is not to try to pull her upright by holding her hands, from the front, but to get behind her and lift her by her shoulders from the back. Again, she has to get her feet beneath her, a painful and difficult process.
Once she’s upright he holds her in his arms. She still isn’t walking — says she can’t balance upright but feels like she’s falling forward.
I ask him how else I can help them. He says it’s OK, that they’ll be all right.
Why do I doubt it?
As I walk away, I look up into the cloudless blue sky, symbolic abode of my personal deity.
Hey! You — the one with the omniscience and the universe and all that… What the hell are You doing back there? Either make it right or make it stop, will You?
The mockingbirds sing. The doves coo. The quail crow. The waiting sky resonates with construction and traffic.
If She has an answer, She chooses not to share it.
Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori.
