Pushing Back the Wind 

When I was a teenager, my dad, a heavy smoker, had several heart attacks before the last one got him.  He worked as a mechanic one block from our house.  My younger brother already as tall as my dad, about 5'7", was visiting the shop he worked at behind a Texaco.  Dad was having trouble breathing and felt weak.  He waited until quiting time and headed home, walking as usual.

In West Texas they have some horrific wind storms, the sky full of red dirt, the sand tearing at any exposed skin, wind gusts up to 60 mph are not unusual.   Well, this was in the day before all the paved streets and for those of us that lived on the edge of the desert, close to where primitive life had gone on for millenniums.   Well, this storm as I remember was not this severe, just your average West Texas wind storm.

My dad and brother started home and it became clear that my dad could not make it against the wind.  My dad and brother both told me the story at different times.  My brother, Alex, moved in front of dad without being asked and slowed his pace way down knowing my dad was unlike to admit that he needed help.  At a snail's pace they worked their way home without speaking.  When my dad got home, he drove himself to the doctor's who admitted him to the hospital for a couple of weeks to recover from a significant heart attack.

Yesterday, we had relatives visiting,  my wife's brother, sister-in-law, their daughter about twelve and their son about eight.   My youngest daughter and I had a great talk while I burned up the hamburgers and asparagus.  She is having problems with depression and pointed out that she has some of the great empathy with others like I do.  It was a compliment on her part, but it lead into a discussion on how hard it is for her to manage her feelings the pain she feels all the time.  As I listen I learned again that her emotional makeup is very similar to mine.  Difference is, she is on a much steeper learning curve at 21 than I every was and she has really poor health.  The end result is that she is clinically depressed and she is dropping out of college.

After the barbecue we did the traditional everyone walk the dog around the block event, all eight of us plus the dog of course.  The two cats declined.   The wind was gusty, the type that  often comes before a thunderstorm.  I was worried about Julie going, she seemed tired to me, but she said she was fine.   It is about a mile around, a comfortable walk for a healthy person.  Julie walked very slow from the beginning, her brother Rich and I stayed back with her.  Ashton, the dog, made periodic journeys between the two groups to see that everyone was okay.  About half way around I moved over and took her hand.  It was then obvious to me how much she was struggling. We held hands letting her put as much weight as her right arm as my left arm would bear.  

The front group had slowed down and come back to us.  I didn't see when Olesia, my youngest daughter, moved in beside her mom, but there she was holding her mom's left hand in her two hands, struggling with the weight of her mom as Julie moved forward slowing with time.  The rest of the group was around us talking and laughing and having a good time.  Julie never said a word and no one in the group knew she was struggling except for Olesia and I.   She never told me, she wouldn't even tell me, but I believe her calves were cramping up and it had become very painful to walk.  We got back to the house, Julie and Jill, the sister-in-law, went inside and I turned on the gas fire place.

The rest of went out side and played hide-and-seek in the dark in the back yard.  Ashton helped the seeker find select people, mostly me and my older daughter, Allison.   You can't really hide from a dog in the back yard, even in the dark.

The walk around the block is an event that Olesia will remember the rest of her life.   It seems a small moment in the unfolding of her life, but an important one.  She noticed when almost no one else did that someone was struggling and reached in and helped without saying anything.  It wasn't about her hurting, which she is, but about someone else needing her help, someone that is too proud to ask for help. 

20100509