Yesterday I spent the best part of the day at Vanderbilt
University Hospital waiting on my husband to have surgery. I wasn’t alone. I
was surrounded by others just like me spending time in a holding pattern for
their loved ones as well. In one of the
waiting areas, I glanced across the room and noticed a man in his 70s, walking
with a cane and sitting alone.
I am not really one
to keep to myself so I began my conversation asking him about who he was
waiting on. He has been bringing his 49
year old stepson here for surgeries from 175 miles away in Kentucky. He would just light up talking about all his sons
and their amazing potential in life, that is until this one had a series of
strokes and the other had health issues that has kept them from living up to
that potential. I had to keep asking questions since he was so willing to chat
with me. I talked about the fact that
there is always a way to use our gifts, even when life seems to throw a curve
ball.
That conversation led us to the most intriguing conversation
of the day. This sweet man, with a bad
leg and the energy to drive his son back and forth from Kentucky to Nashville,
was a marine in the Vietnam war. When we began speaking about overcoming obstacles,
he was more than ready to share the obstacles he had overcome in his youth.
“In Vietnam, the heroin was 82% pure heroin. Not like the
stuff they have today. This stuff was
almost pure heroin. It was easy to get
and even easier to get hooked.” As the
war was ending, he traveled through the Philippines before heading home. There he experienced the hell of withdrawal.
He had never been so sick for so long. The vomiting, shaking and complete
torment overcame every ounce of his being.
I asked him what happened after he returned home, thinking
that relapses are common and the difficulty re-adjusting from war. He said “Well, I decided to go to college,
get my degree and now I am an alcohol and drug counselor.” He didn't talk about the post Vietnam war stuff we read about or the struggles of reintegrating with society. All he knew was that he would never experience the effects of drug use again. He talked about hope and his goal of saving people from his previous fate. Still. At 70 something.
As soon as that was said, the phone rings and the nurse
calls me out. I turned and looked at the man and thanked him for telling me his
story. I told him I hope his son’s surgery goes well.
That was it. I never saw him again over the next 5 hours I
spent at the hospital. I looked everywhere because I really would have loved to
hear more but I guess that wasn’t meant to be that day.
We are all superheroes.
We all have that mountain we have to move and then use that strength to
help others move their mountains. We may have different superpowers, but we are
all heroes.
