THE 0LD SAILOR

I volunteer for the Fire Department on Tuesdays. My assignment is to do blood pressure checks at the local Senior Center.  Almost every time I'm there,  someone sits down and tells me their life story.  I figure my real role is to listen to people who might be lonely.  One man, in particular, has stopped by my table a couple of times for a blood pressure check and a short visit.  Yesterday was different.  His face and hands had abrasions on them.  When I asked him about it, he said he had fallen in the bathroom several times and that it might be due to low blood sugar.  If you could see the many lines on his 80-plus-year-old face and imagine that each of those lines represented experiences, you would understand that what he was about to tell me was a life full of rich experiences that have been followed by several years of extreme grief.  

As he settled into his chair, he began to tell me about the 5 years he and his wife spent on his self-made sailboat exploring the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the Caribbean.  Their only child was born around 1955 while they were docked in Costa Rica.  To finance their long sailing journey, he would work as a machinist and/or do various jobs at the places they docked on their long journey.  On their trip back to the mainland from Hawaii, a horrific 10-day storm with relentless 30 to 40-foot waves hit.  They could do nothing but wait and pray in the cabin. At this point, he realized God was looking out for him.  When the skies cleared, they found themselves close to Vancouver Island. 

Eventually, he was asked to return to the Panama Canal, where he worked as a lock supervisor until his retirement 20 years ago. They returned to the Seattle area, as he had grown up here. For the last 5 years of her life, his wife was in long-term care due to Alzheimer's, which left her entirely dependent and unable to communicate.  He faithfully fed her breakfast every day.  Approximately 18 months ago, he arrived to find her in bed and held her hand as he watched her sleeping.  After a few minutes, she died.  By this point in his story, he was weeping (as was I) and tearfully explained that he had never told anyone as much as he had told me.  I felt honored to hear his story and happy that I was put there in that place and at that time because someone needed to be heard.  I suppose that his life right now is like that 10-day storm in the Pacific. Hopefully, he will one day see the daylight before his time is over.



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