We are crippled. We took her to the ER. This is the 3rd trip to the ER. I am waiting – for 22 consecutive hours – and the hospital staff are making countless calls to shelters. We’re waiting for her doctor, waiting to hear that her health has stabilized, waiting for her blood sugar to go down.
We finally got her a bed at a psychiatric unit, 50 miles away in the downtown area of Los Angeles. It was around 4am when I kissed her goodbye, and left for the return home. Part of me was anxious for separating and leaving her alone. I should know, I too was in a psychiatric unit. For me, however, it was an experiment.
Her diagnosis was more severe. Medication resistant Bi-polar with Severe depression. Although I was working during visiting hours, I would take time off. From work, I drove straight to the hospital, sometimes in traffic, sometimes not. She never asked me to visit, but I was the only one who would get there to show her I support her during these troubling times. Her mom wouldn’t visit, nor would her dad. It was ok. I was her husband, I was her lifeline.
On the second evening, during visiting hours, I was in the lobby, waiting for them to call my name. The shock of visiting someone sick in a hospital can bring about tensions so dense that the air becomes a vacuum. It felt like I was holding my breath. I didn’t notice the ringing in my ears, my mind was racing.
What would happen next is nothing short of a miracle. An angel from above looked me in the eye.
“Hello,” said this guy waiting in the same room as me.
“Hello,” I said back, apprehensively. I gave him a good look and sized him up and down. In my mind, I was convinced (whether or not he was a patient) he was crazy, the hospital was full of crazies. But my mind wasn’t very sharp at this point, I was tired.
But, he approached me because of my unique style that I carry myself. “Don’t you work at the Los Angeles prison?”
The wind swooshed in, the air was reintroduced to the voidless vacuum of a room. My life was over-filled with purpose. I felt radiant. For the first time since marriage, when I didn’t have anyone to confide in, here this guy just came into my life. He was a maintenance engineer at my work. He was an angel.
He picked ME out, recognized ME – out of 1.3 million people in the Los Angeles county and city. I just about melted and wet myself.
At that point, we didn’t have much to say. But we have a common ground, a foundation that gave me encouragement. I was lifted up, in a way that is beyond mortal comprehension. Part of my dumbfoundness, was that I never expected to see anyone. I hardly knew him when I would occasionally see him at work. It’s not like a micro business where the team is all we know. There must be at least 1000 people employed here. I wouldn’t have been able to pick him out if he sat next to me at a bar.
During our brief moments together he taught me the difference between the person I married and the disease she is suffering from. And, how I can differentiate between the two. He really eased my nerves and when we talked, we formed a bond. He isn’t anywhere I know of. I can’t find him anymore. My angel flew away only after month since we first met. I don’t know anything else about him. But the brief 4 or 5 weeks when we talked, was all I needed. Smoke and Mirrors.
Smoke and Mirrors. I wish I could find him again. I wish him and his family well.
THE CHASER'S MANIFESTO 