Pop 89: Dougie’s Keepers
By Madonna Hamel
I had just finished dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on a story about my mother’s funeral when the phone rang. It was my sister in Medicine Hat. My brother had a stroke. It just didn’t compute. Stroke of genius? Stroke of luck? Stroke of insight? Golf stroke? Lightning strike? None of the above all of the above?
The whole while my brain tried wrapping my head around the reality of the moment, my body got up and started packing. Sweaters, socks, pants and toothbrush. Than the important stuff: votive candle, sage smudge and tobacco. But which books? My Lenten Reader, “Dumb Dad Jokes” and “The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy.” I pull on my boots, water the plants, pee, re-pack, change my t-shirt, put on a hat, flush the toilet, gather my library books, abandon my library books, take off my boots, add socks, change shirt, water the plants, put on my glasses, breathe, water my plants, start the car, find matching mitts. I filled the car with gas, then hit the road. I had five rosaries in my pocket but used the vehicular rosary - the nubs on the steering wheel functioning as beads. Hail Mary, Full of Grace …
We’ve been here before, with mom. But now the “gift of aging” is rendering up the “bounty” that comes with entering the third third of life to us. Ideally, we should be able to cash in all our chips: those hours spent fretting and laughing and celebrating over beers and teas and meals and birthdays, those long dark nights of the soul where we learned, bodily, not just theoretically, what it means to be a fragile animal, a tender-to-the-touch being, a wanderer on this planet.
It turns out we don’t always get to live the ideal; in fact, we never do. Any old-timer would tell you this if you bothered to ask. But we don’t. Because somehow, despite knowing better, we are outside the rules of nature, we are the exception. We will prevail. We will escape. Until we don’t.
I got in my car and drove the three and half hours to Medicine Hat through blowing snow, arriving in time for a family conference call, hooked up to my brother Doug’s hospital room. There is nothing more excruciating than knowing your loved one is alone, waking to wires hooked up to them, their head spinning, eyesight gone and tormented by a blinding headache. And no one is there to hold their hand. I think of all those worst nightmares we don’t like to talk about: victims of violence or overdoses, young men dying on battlefields. Florence Nightingale once wrote that “they all call for their mothers.”
My brother is the bravest man I ever knew, laying there, trying to accept whatever happens to him. Hoping for a message or a vision or an understanding of how to make it through the next moment. Making bargains.
We were spilling with love and tenderness and tears, all the while organizing our rescue mission, asking him to just “hold on.” We hunted for available flights, shuttle busses, connections at last seconds. That was Thursday. We couldn’t get a plane until Sunday. Saturday, our brother-in-law Pete drove down from Port Hardy.
I will say this much: Love lowers blood pressure. Pete held Doug’s hand while he slept. The numbers went down.
Thursday began at 6 am, and we landed at 6 and were picked up and delivered to the Campbell River hospital, where we sat on his bed until 10:30, listening to his story, watching him sleep, coaxing him to eat, promising our love, giving reassurances, our brother Dougie’s keepers. Though, it was our little brother who was teaching us how to navigate the hard work of making it back from the edge.
I know we walked home that night down a hill that led us to the ocean’s edge, where a full moon reflected off the water. I know I felt the kind of exhaustion I felt when our mother died on the same day, twelve years earlier. I knew we would not let ourselves fall asleep until midnight had passed.
Things moved quickly after that; love did its work. You don’t even know how much love you hold in your body until someone needs it like oxygen, and it pours out of you, doing its enormous, subtle work.
The next day we boarded a ferry bound for Quadra Island and another for the Island of Cortes. One of my brother’s neighbours called to say she’d gone over and lit the fire in his stove for him to warm the place up. Another borrowed a truck to pick us up. Another called to say: meet me at the back gate; I have fresh-baked buns and corn chowder for you. Still, another offered to set up a fund site, and another offered to come over and chop wood.
Standing in the drug store, waiting for the pharmacy to dispense his meds, we stood for fifteen minutes in front of a selection of plastic pill cases. “That one’s too busy,” “that one’s got too many compartments,” “that’s nice, but the print’s too small.” We also bought him sunglasses, as the light, we were told, would cause headaches, a natural response to brain trauma. “You can go with either Stevie Wonder or Elton John,” I said, offering up a pair of black wrap-arounds and a pair of large rhomboids, framed in white.
When trying to inject levity into a grave moment, it’s always hard to know how much to use and when. And historically, we have always followed Dougie’s lead. So, I’m happy to report we got our cue this evening when, instead of calling “Nurse!” from his bedroom, he hollered: “Guard!”
“He’s back,” we laughed, knowing we will take this gift, one joke at a time. He’s back. And we’re keeping him and treasuring every precious line.