Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Today is a relatively good day. I’ve been chatting with my brother on the phone and with another patient who befriended him and does absolutely everything to make him comfortable. You see, my brother has been in the hospital for about five years straight. Due to a brain tumor (or what I understand it to be), he is paralysed on his right side and has trouble with his speech, especially if he is over-tired, which he is a lot lately.
I love this guy so much! He’s such a card. He loves making people laugh and there is nothing more intoxicating to me than hearing him burst into a fit of giggling. That sets me off while we’re talking on the phone and — even while I cry (for instance, when I’m overwhelmed by the terror of losing him) — he still has me falling right off the chair laughing at his hilarious stories, in an attack of emotional confusion.
Let me tell you more about him. Most people learn to talk and walk only once in their lives. This is not so in his life. He learned both twice and is once again, struggling to walk. By the way, he’s only fifty and has the resilience of a credit card frozen solid in a thick block of ice. Even with scalding water poured over it, that card is still buried deeply and untouchable for quite a long while.
That’s Steve’s big heart and soul. I admire him so much. And the tales I’ve got to tell are mind-blowing. I shake my head every day in amazement and try to find the resolve he displays every day of his life.
