The Lady in the Wheelchair

A couple of weeks ago, I had a special encounter with a lady in a wheelchair. Although I had only talked with her for a minute or two, and within that time she taught me a very valuable lesson.

            On a late Monday morning, I had an encounter with a person who I didn’t know. My mom was late to an appointment, so she made me walk (of course)! After, I was ready to go, I started to walk. The dentist’s office was near my parent’s house, thank goodness. But what I didn’t know about was the hill I had to climb just to get there. It wasn’t very steep, but it was a long, long, long sloping hill.

        As a started to ascend the hill, I saw a lady in a wheelchair in front of me. She pushed a couple of times and then she rested. I looked up at the hill and then back at her. I walked behind her for a few more minutes and then saw that she was near the middle of the hill, where it got very hard to climb. I walked beside her, and kindly asked her if she would like any help up the hill. She turned and said to me with a smile, “No, thank you.” I was kind of surprised at her answer. I thought that most people would find that hill a very difficult task to overcome. I think she recognized my facial expression because at that moment she turned and said to me, “There will always be big hills to overcome, and even as it gets harder, you have to continue to push. If you don’t you get accustomed to quitting and you will never be able to overcome those big hills. Besides, there’s always something good waiting on the other side.”

        Her words kind of hit me like a bunch of boulders. I turned to her and said, “Well, thank you for that.” I thought about what she said, and I knew she was exactly right. Many times have I had those big hills to overcome and I realized that more than often, I give up on the big hills. Lately, that big hill has become a mountain. I’m still working up that mountain and waiting to get on the other side, because I know that something good will come out of the work I’ve been doing. Everybody has at least one big hill to overcome and at times, we all find ourselves giving up or putting off climbing those hills. What we don’t realize is the descent is easy and there’s always something good on the other side. I know now that whenever I find a task too difficult, I will think about the lady in the wheelchair and continue to push myself.

A Moment of Grieving. A Lifetime of Sadness.

        What I’m about to write is a little closer to my heart, and I would like to share this to honor the time I’ve had with this person. I would like that this isn’t mentioned to me when I walk through the hallways at school, because I know that it’ll only sadden me more. Thank You.

What started out as a great morning had all changed by this afternoon. Now, I won’t go into full detail of what happened, because quite frankly I don’t think I can keep reliving that horrid moment.

        This morning, I performed my normal daily routine. My mom suggested that we ride the bikes to Wal-Mart so I could get my knee stretched a little. I have lots of family in Winslow, so we decided to stop at my great aunt’s house. We usually don’t stop at her house, but today we had the feeling that we needed to. My mom walked in and I stood outside waiting. The door was wide open and my great uncle was on the floor; sleeping, we assumed.

        Now a little background on my great uncle. We all have that rebellious family member, you know the one who drinks and does everything bad. Well, my great uncle was that family member. Despite his drinking, he was a very holy person. He loved singing gospel music and always preached to us. He was a funny guy and everybody loved him.

        On with my story…I sat down in the chair next to where he was lying. My mom told me to try and wake him up so he could move out of the living room. (We were having a birthday party for my cousin when all of this happened.) So, I started picking on him, trying to move him and no movement at all. So, I left him alone.

        My great aunt and her daughter had just come from the store after being gone for over an hour, when we arrived. After my mom had teased about my great uncle, she had noticed that she could see his chest rising and falling. She had asked me to check him again, so I nudged him with my foot; still no response. My mom got up and rolled him over and saw that he was completely blue. Of course, he had been intoxicated, but despite that fact we were terrified. He was completely cold and was unresponsive through all of the distractions we gave. Immediately after that we contacted the police. The ambulance showed up and they thought that we were joking around with them. My great uncle lived out on the reservation and he was a regular patient in the E.R. Then, the EMT felt for a pulse and there was nothing, then he called out, “We’ve got a full code.” By this time, I was completely in shock. I couldn’t move; they were doing chest compressions and he still wasn’t reviving. All I was thinking was, he’s lived across from us for years and although I felt the tears coming, they did not roll because I’d still had hope for him.

        We followed the ambulance to the hospital, trying to get more information on whether he was doing okay or not. A lady showed up and escorted us into a room where she gave us the bad news. I was crying so hard that I couldn’t breathe. My grandmother showed up to my great aunt’s house and we broke her news. We were all crying and as I hugged my grandmother, I knew that a hug wouldn’t heal her heart for the brother she had lost.

        Now, I know that we all lose someone in our lives who mean a lot to us, but after experiencing what I had experienced today, I’m even more frightened to lose any more of my family. My great uncle had probably known this was coming because he had sent Christmas gifts to every single person in our family. He had made a comment to all of us that we didn’t take seriously. He had said to all of us, “I bought everybody a gift for a reason; I won’t be around next Christmas to give anymore gifts. Take what I gave to you, and keep them as a memory of me.”

        After hearing the news in the hospital, I thought more and more about the person my great uncle he’d been; so happy and spirited. The more I thought about how I was feeling, I was thinking about how he would have wanted me to react to his death. I figured that he didn’t want me to cry for him; instead he wanted me to smile for him, because he was with God singing his lungs out like he’d always liked to do. We have our moments of grievance and we have the lifetime of silence, but all we have to do is think about the good times we’ve had with them.