Able-Bodied Grateful

He really wanted AirPods. So, I set up an online account for him and pre-ordered them for same-day pickup. Easy peasy. I made myself the pickup person since he wouldn't be able to go get them with me. That's because Robby, my best friend of 45 years, had broken his leg. 

His broken leg was wrapped tightly in padded gauze so it would set and heal properly. It wasn't quite a cast, which I assumed was to still give him some flexibility when transferring from his bed to his wheelchair. A wheelchair he's been bound to since he broke his neck at a swim meet during spring break of our senior year in high school. His paralysis has taken a physical and psychological toll since then, but he lives fairly independently with regular home healthcare visits and a van he can drive. At least, when his leg isn't broken, which has happened multiple times over the years.

Prior to the pandemic, myself and a group of mutual long-time friends would go visit Robby at least one to two times per year since high school. (A big thank you to friends Greg and Rob for going to help Robby right after he broke his leg this time). Although we talk on the phone regularly, I've only seen Robby a couple of times the past few years including this latest visit, the soonest I could get up to see him. 

We had a great time catching up, listening to music, watching movies, and reminiscing about our lives and our friendship. Being a partial quadriplegic, his physical body has atrophied dramatically over the years, his bones brittle and easily broken with any trauma, like falling to the floor trying to transfer to his wheelchair or his bed. 

After picking up his AirPods, I brought them back and showed him how I removed them from their container and then gave him the container to try. For those who don't own a pair, the container magnetically holds the AirPods in place and the lid snaps shut easily to protect its contents. 

I watched him try to open the container. Since his accident in high school, I've known he doesn't have the same dexterity or strength as able-bodied people, and he can't pinch with his fingers like I can. I've watched his physical activity over the years, helping him when needed (or if he wanted it), but this time I just watched him navigate the AirPods. After about 10 minutes, he got them into his ears and we tested them. He loved them. 

And it took 10 minutes. If you think about how long it takes an able-bodied person to remove them and put them into the ears, around 10 seconds, 10 minutes is a long time relatively speaking. But not to my best friend. He's adapted over the years and can manage a lot of activities that able-bodied people take for granted. 

The morning I was to head home, I began to feel nauseous and achy. And unfortunately, my body remembered that feeling all too well -- the stomach flu. Or, more accurately, the norovirus, which isn't a flu at all. You can get the norovirus anywhere and I've had it a few times over the years, and it gets you at both ends, if you know what I mean. Ugh. I still had to drive home four hours, too. 

I made it home without incident, but was then sick with it for two days. Norovirus is highly contagious once you're sick, so then I gave it our oldest Beatrice. Then my wife Amy got it. Then our youngest Bryce got it. I turned my house into a cruise ship for a week (if you don't get that reference, norovirus has infamously infected passengers on cruise ships). 

Throughout the week as my family nursed each other back from norovirus, all I could think about was watching my best friend removing his AirPods from their case and putting them into his ears. Again, it took him 10 minutes when it only takes me 10 seconds (and then imagine those who can't do it at all on their own). Living with a lifetime of paralysis reminds me of how much we can take for granted in our lives; my family could move easily back and forth from the bed to the bathroom when sick. Thank goodness he didn't get the norovirus after I left. I'll always be able-bodied grateful and empathize with those who aren't. Blessings, my dear friend, and rock on. 

So Bang and Burn Away

"Oh my dear Heaven is a big band now
Gotta get to sleep somehow
Bangin' on the ceiling
Bangin' on the ceiling
Keep it down..."

-Foo Fighters, The Sky Is A Neighborhood

The sky caught fire. 

"Beatrice, look," said the Mama, what I lovingly call my wife.

"What?"

"Look at the sunset."

"Wow."

"I want to see!" shouted Bryce.

"Look, girls. Daddy, come look."

We all crowded in front of our living room window. Deep blue bled lavender and charcoal gray. A layer of rippled clouds fanned out above us from the northwest and burned softly like the embers of a dying fire. The orange and red flared and grew brighter as if stoked from above.

"If we go out on the porch we can see it better," said the Mama.

The view was better, but still somewhat obstructed by trees and buildings in front of us. 

"Oooooo," said the girls. 

"Gorgeous," I said.

"Let's go down to the water and see it," said the Mama. "There's time."

Bryce flailed on the couch. "No! I don't want to go anywhere!"

"Yes, let's go now before it's gone," I said. "Get your shoes on girls."

"Alexa, what time is the Santa Cruz sunset," the Mama asked our new Amazon gadget.

"The sunset in Santa Cruz today is 5:11 pm," Alexa replied. I looked at my watch -- it was 5:21 pm.

"C'mon, let's go," I said. "We have to do it know or we'll miss it."

We all had our sweatshirts and shoes on, and were ready by the front door, except Bryce.

"I don't want to go!"

"Fine, you can stay home by yourself," the Mama said, not serious of course. "We're going now."

"Whaaaaa!" Bryce fake whined and thrashed on the couch.

"Bryce, get your frickin' shoes on and let's go!" I insisted.

"Okay, okay! I'm coming!"

A few minutes later we were down by the ocean looking for a place to park. As was nearly most of Santa Cruz it seemed. Cars and people were everywhere. Street parking was full. The Natural Bridges State Beach 20-minute parking was full. I parked along the side of the road that led in and out of the state beach main parking, facing the exit. That way we could leave after watching the sunset for a few minutes. There wasn't time to drive all the way down to the main lot and park and walk onto the beach, the same one I workout on every week. We got out to watch the burning sky.

The time is always now again -- the now of every beat and breath and being completely in on each one, without distraction, no matter how unruly the universe gets. The next day there would be the kisses goodbye with my lovely wife and the hugs from my girls before I headed out to see my best friend for his birthday, each kiss and hug a time capsule to be repeatedly unearthed during my time away. 

Then there would be the time spent with my best friend of 40 years. Two men in their 50's, one able-bodied and one paralyzed since our senior year in high school, looking backward and projecting forward, never afraid to be emotionally accessible to one another, or take each other out with relentless one-liners.

But that was yet to come; the sky caught fire again. It glowed white-hot where the sun had set into the sea beyond, it's periphery pink and red, scorched black underneath. I took picture after picture, and in between, let the now embrace me again, and again. Muted oh's and ah's filled the spaces between all of us watching this glorious sunset. 

Now this is heaven, I thought. So bang and burn away.

Being What Happens Next

"Mommy, Daddy -- let's watch the superheroes!"

Those words, paying homage to The Incredibles, echoing in my head as I run at a decent clip, one step after another, one breath after another...imagining my girls running around house, outside, down the street, jumping in the air, standing on their tippy-toes to pick sour apples...me running a little faster to keep up with them...

I am able-bodied. I can walk and run. So are the Mama and the girls. That shouldn't make us superheroes, and it doesn't really, but to those who can't, it's different. Much different.

Different for those who live an alternative afterlife post injury or illness or birth defect, paralyzed from the waist down, the sternum down, or even the neck down.

Like my best friend, Robby. We've been friends since we were 12 years old. A long, long time ago...

And then there was a fateful spring day at a swim meet our senior year in high school. Him wanting to go with a group of us to the coast instead of his swim meet, knowing perfectly well he wouldn't miss his meet for anything. Us returning early that evening to discover shockingly that he broke his neck and crushed his spinal cord on a third false start, then us rushing to the hospital to see him, his mother claiming we were family so we could see him in the ICU the next morning when he was conscious.

Three months later he's brought by ambulance from the hospital rehabilitation center to graduate with our senior class, the class of 1984, me having the honor of pushing him into the football stadium and standing by his side throughout the commencement.

Thirty-five years I've known him, and even after the accident, no matter how many times he's relived his life pre-paralysis, and wished to have it all back post, he keeps saying to me:

"I want to be around to see what happens next."

No matter how hard it's been or it gets, I want to be around...

The superhero mythos is about having extraordinary powers and using them to do good and help others (unless you're a villain, which I hope you're not). Unfortunately we take for granted the extraordinary powers that move us forward every single day, physically, mentally and spiritually, to see what happens next. But not just seeing what happens next -- being what happens next.

Prior to my run this morning, I was up looking around Robby's house, the house that we've been coming to see him in since he moved here five years after his accident. He's an artist now, and a comic book collector, an aficionado actually, and his collection is quite extensive. He's also has shelves and boxes full of comic book figures and figurines -- both heroes and villains -- in nearly every room. It's a fascination with amplified characteristics from hyper-reality fiction, an alternative afterlife of how imaginative minds tell our human story, the one we live everyday, to see and hopefully aspire to be everyday.

The irony isn't lost on either of us that he dressed like Superman for Halloween our senior year, six months prior to his accident. No matter how much we joke about the past, or long for it, the irony is never lost.

The Mama and I want our girls to "B" what happens next, regardless. To be an everyday superhero like my best friend, Robby, no matter the kryptonite we keep.