Who Help's the Helper? Part Two

May eighth, this year. The trees had gotten a bit of a late start, but nonetheless were budding, and some had early leaves. It was a Saturday, so as usual I was at work. My regular partner, K, was out sick, so I was working with a part time paramedic.

"I have to get to Vermont next week", I kept thinking. I wanted to spend some more time with my sister, Janie, who was beginning to succumb to a long fight against cancer. I wanted to just sit with her, talk to her, touch her, anything. I was willing to change bedpans, give baths, I didn't care, I just wanted to be there.

But I wasn't. My plan was to go spend a few more days with her the following week, however I longed to be there now. Working and being unable to just take off seemed frustrating, but the more I thought about it, I began to believe I was afraid. "Why don't I go up there tomorow"? I asked myself. Nothing really was stopping me. My job would be there when I returned, and my family, but there was that feeling. It was almost like fear, "but of what?" I said.

Midmorning I found myself in the parking lot of a donut shop, where a lady had fallen. She wasn't injured, and didn't want to go to the hospital, so as my partner was speaking with her, I was firing up our computer, to obtain a refusal. I to this day firmly believe that the commodore 64 my friend Stephen had when we were ten was faster than this six thousand dollar one. It would almost groan to life as it took fifteen minutes to boot up, by that time, many folks either change their minds, or just leave the scene.

After the lady signed the refusal on the computer, I was walking back towards the ambulance, parked on the street. My phone vibrated, and I looked and saw I had missed a call, and there was a voicemail. "I didn't hear it ring", I thought. My fathers voice on the message sounded strange, different than I had ever heard. I called him back as I got into the drivers seat. "Janie died this morning" , he said bluntly. "No daddy, no!" I yelled into the phone. "She couldn't die, I haven't spent enough time with her yet" I yelled at myself.

My father was very calm as he explained the previous night. She had just begun hospice care, and the nurse had set up all her equipment the day before. Janie seemed to be in good spirits, and was her normal self, joking. The night however, was different. She could not stop coughing. The morphine, and other drugs didn't help, and that morning, the sister who rarely complained, asked for more medicine.

She fell asleep, exhausted after coughing all night, and now sedated and hopefully pain free. My mother was with her, as my father. The nurse had come over, and told them that this, she believed, might be her final minutes. Her breathing became labored. My parents called the family who was close by, and some in laws, and nephews and neices, and my other sister immediately came over. My mother said that they all sang to her, as her breathing became slower, until it stopped. My father told me that it was all "very peaceful". I did not feel "peaceful". I felt angry, sad, amongst a host of other negative emotions.

As I drove the ambulance back to our station, I felt almost numb. I also wasn't aware of all the things happening in the background. Unbeknownst to me, supervisors were responding from all over to our location, alerted by my wife, who had been called by my mother moments before. She had immediately contacted my superiors and informed them I might be extremely upset. So of course they all came out of the woodwork, the plan my wife had was that I was going to be asked by a supervisor to call my wife, who would tell me of the news, but the plan had been unsuccesfull. I remember calling my wife, and just plain weeping into the phone. Back at our station, I just got into my truck and left. I didn't even know where I was going. She was dead. The word itself conjured images of death in my mind as I drove. I've seen death in all it's forms. It has a smell, even when it's fresh, and now she was one of,......them? "No", I thought. She couldn't be what I had seen for so many years. Dead. I hated that word.
Her funeral wasn't a funeral at all, but a celebration of her life. Before she left us, she specifically asked for people to celebrate her life, no black clothes allowed. She also wanted a large chocolate bar. Her celebration was the next week, and before, myself, and the rest of my family went to her gravesite, for a more personal celebration. I wish the reader could see it. Overlooking vast mountains, on a mountain itself, sits her remerendum. Just the way she was, the location itself is very peaceful.

I didn't feel any emotion that week. No sadness, nothing. I, for the entire week, and even after her service, felt absolutely nothing. It was like someone came into my body and removed all my emotions, even happyness. Blunted and apathetic, I returned to Rhode Island with my family, only to continue on a trail of eventual sadness and grief. I felt as if I shouldn't be allowed to greive, since I hadn't done my part. I hadn't spent enough time with her, so I shouldn't cry, shouldn't be allowed. "Only my family can greive, I don't even deserve too", I continued to remind myself. I continued that method of thinking until emotion was reinstalled into my body, almost robotically. I grieved, I cried, but I still felt selfish, and undeserving.

July came, and brought the familiar heat and humidity with it. Life had kind of resumed some normalcy for my family and I. Something was different, changed. I couldn't put my finger on it, I just knew that in my mind, something in my life had changed. One of my sister's favorite bible verses was from the book of Philipians, and it reads, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain."(Philippians, 1:21). This verse was printed on a purple card that was at Janie's celebration. I knew my sister had the most amazing faith in the Lord of anyone I had ever met. I want someday to have that type of relationship with God, the faith, and I don't want to dissway you, she didn't develop this "faith" , an hour before she died. She had it from the beginning. Six years. She knew, she became almost excited at the end, my parents told me, of knowing she would get too see long lost relatives, friends, and the Lord she had so faithfully worshipped for her whole life. I was awestruck by her faith, all along, but even more so as she became sicker and sicker, with each disheartening relapse, she was rock solid, still leaning back in God's arms.

I discovered the "change", I had suspected later on that month. It was subliminal at first, but close. Almost similar too when you are on the verge of just remembering something, and it's on the tip of your tongue. Work had resumed for me as normal. I had taken almost a month off, and honestly just wanted to go back to work out of boredom.

I found myself on calls, more specifically, with my patients, too be holding their hand when they were afraid or scared. I noticed myself looking psych patients in the eyes when they spoke, listening intently of their every word, and not speaking, just being a good listener to their problems. Compassion seemed to be pouring out of me for just about every type of patient, even those I previously despised. It no longer mattered to me as much that old Mary Knockenfocker called us at three in the morning because she was constipated, I treated her with this strange sense of devotion, compassion, and respect that only "other" people possesed.

Realization came too me one night in August. I was at home, watching television with my son, when I glanced down and saw the verse, my sister's favorite, tattooed onto my arm. The verse doesn't have mention of compassion per say, but somehow I knew I was molded. I was starting too treat people, and patients mostly, the way my sister, or even more, God would have. Please remember, I had never made a concious decision to start treating people in a different way, it just began to happen, and I let it. I enjoyed it even, and although my partner rolled his eyes at me many times as I was doing something almosts unheard of in our ems system, helping someone who otherwise would be helpless, I didn't care.

October's here, and with it comes the familiar change of scenery. I miss my sister, but with her passing came a wonderful change in me. I realized after many years of seeing the sheer violence and despicable acts of man, that maybe I could help somebody, who knows, it might be contagious.