A couple who look like they’ve been together for a very long time sit in a waiting room at the Western Hospital. The man looks anxious and uncomfortable, maybe even angry, and his wife will not intrude upon that. Holding her purse primly– like she was in church– she sits with her knees together staring straight ahead. She will not say a word. She will not move a muscle. They don’t look at one another. The tension in their lives a living thing, a creature that travels great distances and will not go away.

And in the foyer there is a Book and Bake sale taking place. A very skinny woman in a motorized wheelchair is looking at the cupcakes. She’s wearing a pink kerchief on her head, in honour of Valentine’s Day, and she is thumbing through a book called Rogue Angel.

All the donated books there. Books thumbed through on beach vacations, books that changed lives or passed right through them. All these stories moving through time, intersecting, and ultimately reducing to the same story: How will I live, how will I die? And at the kiosk beside, there is a long lineup for the Lotto 6/49. Doctors and patients alike. Pretty nurses are scrolling their phones as they wait, men in hospital gowns clutching IV stands, people visiting loved ones. Each person having a plan for the money, each one hoping for something–a candy apple red Corvette, a promising drug, some safe horizon. Past them and outside, through slush and snow I step into a taxi. I am tired and my oxygen tubing has caught on the door, and as I am trying to disentangle it, the sudden astonishment of a female driver speaking to me. Her accented voice from far away, the subtle trace of her perfume, like light falling on water.

The elderly husband is in a wheelchair being pushed through the hospital by his elderly wife. They’ve probably been married for 60 years, but he’s presently vanishing before her eyes. No longer the man she met chasing a dog down a street so many years ago. Now he’s frail and stooped, his shoulders curling forward as if some magnet within his body was  compelling them together. But in spite of this, in spite of his immobility, the hospital slippers, IV bag and bruises crawling up his legs, he’s trying to be cheerful, trying to make the best of things. He says something to his wife, but his voice is a whisper and she can’t hear him. He tries again and it’s the same result. And then he stops trying to talk, and the two of them, so bound, move in silence toward whatever comes next.

I have no idea why the guy brought it to me, other than to remove it from his sphere of responsibility, but it felt like a test. Here, I present you with suffering, what will you now do?

The squirrel lay in a blue recycling bin, ontop of some gravel and a piece of tarp. It’s body no longer worked the way it always had, and whenever it tried to heave itself into an upright position, it could not. Imagine the effort– the desperate and complete effort– it must have taken to do that, again and again and again. The eyes of the animal were terrified and dull, and it seemed obvious that it was dying.

I placed the recycling bin in a shaded place, and then brought out some water and nuts, hoping that over the course of the night it might somehow recover, or die as nature had ordained.

I woke up the next day to see that the animal had lifted itself from the box, travelled perhaps 25 feet, and collapsed on the street. It rose to 40 degrees that day. The situation had become worse, and I could see that my actions had been a feckless half measure, designed to make me feel better more than actually help the squirrel. If I had more courage, I would have killed the squirrel. Or I would have picked him up with my hands, wrapped him in a blanket and carried him into the cool of the apartment. I would have done more than the bare minimum necessary to excuse myself of moral repsonsibility.

It’s funny, when we’re on social media we appear so responsive to suffering, so brave. We stand in solidarity. We sign petitions. We boycott and shame. We make bold proclamations, as if calling troops forth to battle, our virtue and sensitivity shining like fires. But in the real world? When we’re actually called to suffering?

Well, I didn’t do much. My efforts were just enough to make me feel better, you know? I got the squirrel onto the grass, tried to shield it from the sun, and once again set out nuts and water.

As I sat at my desk I could see the squirrel through the window as it lay immobile, occasionaly spasming as it tried to right itself. Other squirrels were arriving, not to help, of course, but to take the nuts I had laid out. It was unbearable to watch, and so I called Animal Services.

They arrived, plucked the squirrel up off the ground with an elongated grabber, swiftly put it into a cage, thanked me for my, I don’t know, participation, and then left. And that was that. The animal’s suffering, the animal’s death, was no longer my responsibility.

Whatever the test was that I was given in the form of this injured squirrel, I am sure I failed. And I cannot help but think of myself online, up to my neck in this absracted reality where we’re all so certain we know what the good is, and how to accomplish it. But when I was literally handed a small opportunity to alleviate another creature’s suffering, my intercession was insufficient, and the unintended consequences of my actions had made matters worse.

I will try to remember this as I move through my days.

I used to spend an awful lot of time in taverns.

Typically, I’d take my place amidst a stretch of solitary men drinking at a long bar. The conversation was a slow background rumbling, almost like distant thunder, and it lasted all night.

Sports.

The weather.

Women.

TV.

The past.

Strangers who had no expectation of seeing one another again, with little in common beyond the drink in front of them, making a conscious effort not to be alone, to try in some way, to connect. These conversations were beautiful to me, and I’ve come to miss them.

As a substitute, I’ve taken to listening to Sports Talk radio at night. The other day was a call-in show out of Toronto. Lacey from Oshawa had a few things to say about the Blue Jays. She was stubbornly defending third baseman Josh Donaldson:

“ Josh is far and away the greatest Blue Jay, and just because he’s injured the team shouldn’t quit on him! He’s given them everything, and now they just want to abandon him? That’s just so crappy. You can’t treat people like that. It’s wrong.”

The voice was familiar, and as I listened I realized that I knew her. Lacey from Oshawa was part of a group of patients I did pulmonary reahb with at a facility in Toronto. She was so thin then, and so angry, and every single day she wore a Blue Jays jersey with Josh Donaldson’s name on the back.

Her path had been difficult, and the heavy veil of sadness and pain that shrouded her was rarely lifted. Maybe at Bingo, if she got a line, she might allow herself a thin, bitter smile, but that was about it. She simply could not bring herself to socialize, and what we found out about her was through observation and hearsay, all of which reduced to this: when she fell ill and became incapacitated her husband left with their young son. That was how her life had worked out.

As I listened to her on the radio, hearing her speak more than I had in the two months we shared at rehab, I heard a stronger, braver voice. She was– with this phone call decrying a lack of loyalty to somebody doing their best in the face of physical limitations– making a conscious effort not to be alone. She was reaching out, and it felt like a miracle that I got to witness this, that I got to imagine her recovered and at home, fully herself now, and fighting for somebody she loved.

It was one of those beautiful summer days, one of the days you wait for, and Jones, like all the children there, was having the time of his life. Running from one attraction to the next, he would fling himself into each discovery with greedy amazement. His joy in his body, and the interaction between it and this emerging world around him, was a visible, glowing thing.

Not far from us was a young boy in a wheelchair. He seemed conspicuously alone as he sat there looking through a mesh screen at all the other children playing inside the Bouncy Castle/Obstacle Course. He was probably around 10, and although he could move his head a little bit, he couldn’t move his arms or legs at all and speech seemed difficult. Sheltered from the sun by the shade cast from the nylon castle, he sat motionless and quiet while all the other children tumbled and spun and screamed.

The Bruno Mars song “Marry You” was playing, and even if you don’t know this song you probably know this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xdyRsGOl6U

It was a hit about ten years ago, and is the sort of infectious, optimistic pop that’s nearly impossible to resist– a welcome trigger for your body and mood, an instinct to movement, really. It’s happy music and it would have been on every party mix made at the time– the song kids would hear in their heads whenever they thought about the person they had a crush on, the song that would surge through them into adventure and love.

And then there was this boy– a spectator, and it was unbearably sad. I went over and stood beside him, and there I saw his two companions, maybe brothers or friends, both lanky boys of 13 or so. They were rolling and leaping through the castle, and when they spilled-out the exit, all hair, shouts and over-sized feet, they immediately ran over and hugged the boy. Excitedly, they shared every detail.

He was so loved, and it seemed right then that there was no boundary between the three of them.

And then the they pushed him off to the next attraction, speeding him over the bumpy, uneven ground like it was some wild game they played, all of them smiling, all of them beautiful and happy beneath the day.

They didn’t talk much, although the one with the small, white hospital towel draped over his knees, offered that, “heart disease might be involved, too.” He took a drag from his cigarette as he waited for a response. You could see the tattoos covering his hand, the IV piercing the skin just above the word HATE spelled out on his knuckles, the smoke being exhaled. The other guy nodded. He had nothing to say. And with that the conversation disintegrated. Just space between them now. An unbroachable distance. Grief-struck and lost, a million miles apart, they looked through all the people passing by on the sidewalk in front of them, and stared off into other worlds.

As I was waiting in the elevator, a woman suddenly angled through the closing doors and appeared amongst us. Slightly startled and self-conscious, she looked about at the motley crew surrounding her. A handsome man, with whom she had just made eye contact, asked her what floor she wanted.

“Seven,” she said, and then as if it was a word she thought she was saying in her head rather than out loud, softly added, “oncology.”

Nobody said anything, and she looked down. Her blond hair was still shiny and immaculately maintained, and she had one of those artificial tans that stood out, somehow suggesting she had always aspired to be a trophy to someone.

She smiled weakly at me, “ To look at me you wouldn’t even know, “ she began, but then as if seized by a kind of shame, she stopped. None of us felt like we belonged, it wasn’t just her. And then we all rode the elevator up in awkward silence, each one of us getting off at our own particular floor, each one stepping into a world we never dreamed we might belong.

Last night was Pub Night at the rehab centre.

It took place in the same generic, over-lit space that all our social events take place, and the “bar” itself was a few cafeteria tables that had been pushed together, upon which was a scattering of paper plates with a few potato chips and cheesies on them. If you had gotten a note from the doctor you were allowed to get half a glass of wine or beer, but most of us had forgotten to do so, and settled for a ginger ale.

More cafeteria tables, also pushed together, formed a U in front of a small stage upon which a band was playing. Many of the men watching, arms crossed as if judging the music, perhaps even their circumstance, sat as far away as possible. It was as if their bodies were clenched, resisting both the music and all that lay before them. Meanwhile, the women seemed entirely receptive and accepting. Happily fanned out to the side tables, closer to the band, they sat swaying to the music and singing along together. It was beautiful to see, and it was hard not to imagine them all fifty years earlier out on a Saturday night in some smokey dance hall, each one of them a vibrant and glowing presence, each one desired– their entire lives still waiting to unfold mysteriously before them.

As of this writing, I am on day 7 of a 6 week stint at a pulmonary rehabilitation facility.

Last night was an event known as “Coffee House.” It took place in a generic, over-lit cafeteria style room that was made all the more depressing by the tiny gestures of decorative cheer added by the well-intentioned staff.

An inspirational message taped to the wall.

A balloon tied to a folding chair.

Somewhere a Dollar Store streamer that wouldn’t stay in place, hanging limp as if injured.

All of us gathered there were quiet, standing around as awkward and vulnerable as children at a school dance. Those who were most profoundly ill, those for whom recovery was out of reach and who lived permanently in the residence, had been pushed up near a three-piece band that was getting ready to perform. These people sat in complicated, tongue-controlled wheelchairs, and at a casual glance appeared fused into the metal of their containers– their mouths open, faces rigid and untranslatable. The rest of us, those attached to oxygen tanks and those not, just looked lost and a little sad, like we’d long given up hope of being asked to dance. You felt what was missing rather than what was there—and it seemed as if in each breath we exhaled a shallow puff of loss, all then gathering together like a weather system to form a heavy, oppressive cloud that enveloped us.

It was heartbreaking.

The band, a kind of folk outfit that was comprised of a woman who looked like a community organizer on tambourine, a bongo player in a Toronto Blue Jays cap, and an electric keyboardist who tried to project energy by wearing a Hawaiian shirt, began to play. At first the music seemed like it was designed to be little more than sound, just a “something” to help fill the emptiness of the situation, but then the woman began to sing I’ll Fly Away. Her voice was beautiful and true, and everybody in the coffee house fell into it.

When the shadows of this life have gone

I’ll fly away

Like a bird from these prison walls I’ll fly

I’ll fly away

And that voice, that song, it seemed to come out of us, too. And for a few moments we were all living beyond our mortal cages, we were all soaring– everything effortless, everything weightless, everything beautiful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MNM0OO_iVI