Six Alive

Six years ago, I had an accident.

Wait a minute. "Had an accident" sounds like I did something untoward to/in my shorts. I was in an accident. Involved in an accident. I participated in an accident. You probably know the story if you know me. A refresher though: I was cycling around the seawall, a rollerblader cut me off, I put on the brakes, flipped over, landed hard. Flew about a half mile. Scraped my face. Lost a tooth. The pavement broke my hand and because misery loves company, that same hand broke my spleen. "I'm taking you with me!" my left hand yelled. Really, I heard it. Anyway, that's what this 2nd post is about. (Hey, I'm writing a 2nd post! Good for me.) It's about healing, and about men, and also a little bit about hockey.

I've started thinking lately about what it is to be a man. Not the caricature of a man, with the brandy, cigars, guns, footballs and strippers. I've been thinking about how fragile we are, or can be. About how men can end up at the lowest possible point. How do we crawl out of that? I'm thinking of three men in particular.

1. Jack Shephard on Lost. OK, I know he's not a real guy. But I feel very close to him, as I sometimes do with well-written, well-acted characters. But without giving away too much, he's at his lowest point on the show and he was once so strong. It's upsetting to watch.

2. Nicholas White. Who's that? He's the man who was trapped on an elevator for an entire weekend. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_bMhNI_TY8). He's just a guy. I don't know him at all. He's just a guy like me, who works at a job, who takes an elevator to his job and lives and eats and sleeps, and then one day he was leveled. He was encased for 41 hours with only two antacids and three cigarettes. He got fetal. Thought about killing himself. And then afterwards he dared to Let It Get To Him. Because of that he lost his job and his apartment. He sued the building and only got four figures for it. Not that money can fix something like that. It just buys you more distractions, postpones the feelings.

3. Philip Brendan Mahoney. The first thing I remember after landing was screaming. Like, really screaming. There were people around and I think my screaming alarmed them more than anything else. And then I remember thinking my face was gone. I thought I had scraped my face right off. I said to the people around, and I'll never forget this as long as I live, "Please don't tell me how bad my face is." They all instantly did the opposite, thank God. They assured me that it wasn't bad at all, and it was true. It was simple road rash. Later, a nurse at the hospital would use a rough wet towel to scrape all the bits of seawall out of my skin. That hurt. But Polysporin is an AMAZING product, and by the time I left the hospital four days later, my face was pretty much back to normal.

So that scream and that question I asked are the things I want to talk about. Actual injuries aside, those two things were potentially more dangerous than anything. What happened in my brain? To my brain? I thought my FACE was GONE. My brain, at one point in my life, processed that thought. I crossed a line, mentally. I can't undo that thought. My brain popped its crazy cherry. How would I get over this? I turned to page 79 in my Choose-Your-Path-To-Adventure Book, whereas Mr. White chose page 52. I decided to Not Let It Get To Me. I just decided it. Which is remarkable for me. I'm a sensitive man, and I have trouble letting things go. I don't know if it "made me stronger" or "toughened me up". I just know that I let it go. I had to. So I did.

And hockey. Just a little coda here. After two or three days in the hospital, I was BORED. When I was finally able to get up and walk around, I walked to the lounge/common room thing and found a TV. I realized that the next day was game two of the Stanley Cup Finals, starring the Carolina Hurricanes VS the Detroit Red Wings. I watched that game and it was the best game I've ever seen. It was the first thing to really take my mind off the accident. As awesome as the visits from friends were (and they were so great, thank you) they didn't take my mind off the accident because that's what we talked about. The game took me away for awhile. The Red Wings are in the finals again, and I'm cheering for them again. Go, Cousin Kris!