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Topic: Control (01/30/06)
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TITLE: No Dinner for John | Previous Challenge Entry
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02/04/06 -
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John’s large, reclining wheel chair, custom built for him, was parked just outside the dining room door of the Southern Oaks Nursing Home. The nurse parking John’s chair had gotten a telephone call and left him there temporarily while he answered. John was beginning to wonder if he had been forgotten. The nurse had also failed to place a blanket over John before leaving the room. It was cold in the hallway and he always felt more comfortable when his body wasn’t exposed to everyone’s glaring eyes.
He heard the nurse replace the telephone on the receiver, but instead of coming toward him, went in the opposite direction. Must have been an important call, he thought, but he could have come back and rolled me into the dining room before going on another errand.
The noise from the diners had quieted down. John could picture them all busily eating now. He could hear the click of the forks against the plates and smell the tantalizing aroma of the fried chicken. How he hoped someone would cut his chicken up and feed it to him. He was hungry, especially for fried chicken. It had been a long time since he’d eaten fried chicken. The nurses who fed him didn’t like to take time to cut his food up. They preferred feeding him soups and soft foods that took less effort on their part.
Before the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, more commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, took over his life-fried chicken had been his favorite food. Now, he had no control over his body. He could not feed himself, button his shirt, walk, and talk or do anything requiring mobility. He was just a helpless vegetable.
It was evident, by now the nurse had forgotten him. The group in the dining hall had almost finished eating. How he wished he could raise a hand and start the chair rolling or call to someone to come get him, but his voice had left him too. He had once been a successful businessman with a lovely wife and family, a home and extras that made life meaningful. One day in his mid-forties, he started to lose his balance and stagger. Slowly, parts of his body lost its feeling and failed to respond to the commands of his mind. The next thing he knew, he’d been diagnosed with ALS and everything in his life changed.
He looked down the hall in the direction his nurse had disappeared. No one was in sight. If only he could get someone’s attention. If only he had a voice, he could yell. If he could raise a hand, he could start the wheelchair.
No one knows, John thought, how important sound is until you cannot create it. What good is hearing and seeing, if one cannot respond? Sometimes, he thought, he would be better off if he could not hear what people said about him and see how they reacted.
The crowd in the dining room came surging out the door, making their way to the lounge or back to their rooms for an afternoon nap. No one paid the slightest attention to the wheel chair and the man sitting in it. It was like he and the chair were a part of the scenery. As the last straggler left the dining hall, another nurse approached.
“Looks like someone abandoned you in the hall, John, I’ll take you to your room.”
John tried with all his faculties to communicate to the nurse that he had not been to dinner. In his frustration, the sentimentality that is common with ALS broke down and he started crying.
The nurse reached for a tissue and wiped his eyes and nose, patted him softly on the shoulder and said. “John, try to control your emotions. You know it makes you feel worse when you allow yourself to cry.”
What does she know about control, John thought? She still has it. She has no idea what life can be without it. She doesn’t know what it’s like to be locked inside a body that will not respond to the mind’s commands. I am a prisoner of my flesh.
As the chair moved toward the room, John remembered that once he had believed God still had a purpose for him, even in his helpless condition. Use me Lord, He prayed silently, I am now under your control.
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I actually wept.This message sent me to prayer, thank you for sharing.
You put heart into this story. Only God can provide what John needs.