Pop 89: Vocation Without Pay
By Madonna Hamel
madonnahamel@hotmail.com
The sun shines through my window this morning. I hope it’s shining all the way to Val Marie and keeps shining until Friday, as I am about to head home. I know once I get behind the wheel of my car, I’ll be ok, having slipped into driving-in-the-moment mode. But there is always a healthy sense of trepidation before heading toward the mountains in the winter. However, I’m prepared: I’ve cleaned my windows and mirrors, filled up on wiper fluid and broke down and spent an exorbitant amount of money on brand new winter tires. Spending the last month with an 89-year-old man working hard to get his health back has alerted me in a very real way to the preciousness of life. Besides, one must always save for “Tires & Teeth,” and this has been a year for both.
We all have been graced with many gifts reminding us of the ephemerality of life. Our brief glimmer of time on earth makes the fact of life all the more glorious and miraculous. How is it our hearts keep pumping, our livers filtering, our brains calculating, our muscles motoring, when we pay scant attention to them? Only when things start to break down, go awry, skip a beat do we remember what a magnificent mystery is the human body. Its capabilities, calculations and recalculations far surpass the potential of any technology.
According to ScienceABC, an online magazine, the human brain’s capacity to make a “billion calculations a second” is “far faster than any computer. But it also has flexibility, and it can rewire itself, a feat called neuroplasticity. “Neurons can separate reconnect with others and even change their basic properties, which a carefully constructed computer cannot.”
I experienced my brain calmly, methodically and speedily directing my actions on my drive out here when, taking an icy corner on an unfamiliar route, my windshield covered in mud, I unrolled my window, reached for my bottle and squirted water until I could see clearly, again. Until the water turned to ice. My point is: I moved through the motions directed to me by my brain in a logical, practical manner - first do this, then do this, then that. I felt as if I were doing a dance step I didn’t know I knew.
I believe in the body far beyond its sex appeal and its ability to threaten or intimidate or win competitions. I believe it wants to live and expects us to give it room to move and sense and celebrate. But I have also seen how, being caught between nearly gone and newly revived, it can make a person feel miserable, lost and depressed. How a person decides whether or not to give up is an intimate process. When the body starts eating itself, as in the case of cancers and diseases, I am not qualified to address. But I can say, that when vocational professionals like my dad’s physiotherapist, takes the time to stand by his side (my sister on the other, taking notes) and encourages him with every toe lift and knee bend, the man and the body rally as one and hope returns.
And then there’s the doctor. I actually got down on my knees the night before we took our dad to his new doctor for the first time, in person. It was an effort for dad to get into my sister’s car; he didn’t know if he had the strength. This guy better be good, my sister and I grumbled, having witnessed doctors in the past who were anything but vocational. What we got was beyond all hopes and expectations: a man who listened to every word dad said and heard every unspoken tick and creak and sigh as well. And, he listened to us daughters, respecting our knowledge of our father and our observations. And when the visit was over, he thanked us for caring for dad and offered to do a house call. Yes, that’s right, I said “house call.” In fact, he paid two calls in one week.
His care and gentleness made me think about the work we do and why we do it. When I say the doc and the physio are vocational, I mean to say they seem to be responding to a call. They fit their jobs so intimately that it becomes evident that doing their jobs well is reward enough. I know they also make a good wage, so I am even more astounded and humbled by those decent humans who are vocational without pay. So many times, my sister and I have walked back to her car this past month, exhausted and worried and already planning the next day, saying: “It’s what you do. You show up. Not because you get any payoff, but because it’s the right thing to do. We’re his daughters. He’s our father. What else do we need to say?” She is better at this than me.
And yet, it ain’t easy! Many times, it’s the hardest, most draining work ever. The constant up and down of health and the waking in the night wondering if he’s ok, right now, alone. I think about the elder folks in my village, Val Marie. They live near their children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, but, ironically, few can stay in the village because the nearest hospital is an hour and a half away. It seems a cruel irony that people who have worked hard all their lives to build a home are asked to leave it near the end of their lives. We need to, as a culture, make this time the least stressful we can.
Still, as I pack for my return to Val Marie, I must resist the urge to believe that something “wrong” is happening because we all get old. Things begin to fail. We break down. Fade. It’s not wrong, bad or a mistake. It’s life in its fullness. I intend to live until it’s time to leave, hopefully with grace and capable, adaptable, lovable humans at my side, not technologies keeping me alive. And I hope for not a lot of fuss or strain on my loved ones.