In the Depth of Toils

When in pain, one commonly be apt to gravitate towards people who have been there, done that. There is this feeling that if you bond with people who went through the pain themselves and recovered, we feel revived. This is what happened with Jim’s old friend. His buddy in high school unfortunately met an accident on his early 30’s and was bedridden for 3 years. He’s got a lot of stories, some unusual stories that are very heart-breaking. One time, his step son almost killed him with the telephone chord when he was in bed and can’t move at all. His wife sold his favorite Corvette for 1500 and some other stuff he owned. The most touching part was when he mentioned the story of his friend who’s paralyzed from neck down. His parents totally abandoned him. They left him in bed for 2 days with his legs crossed. One morning, he called his friend and he told him he doesn’t feel good. There are some strange things that keep jumping on his legs. He can’t move at all. And so, he called another friend to check on him. When they arrived at his house, there were rats eating his legs. They rushed him to the hospital and he died the next day of internal infection. I mean, how sick is that? On the lighter side, he spends a lot of times with friends who have the same problem. Sometimes they go to the lake on their wheel chairs and drink some beers. They find ways to make the most of what they’ve got. Still, he has not completely accepted it.

Oh, my heart goes to those people who are going through such rough times. Some people wasted their lives on drugs while some people never gave up despite their health limitations. How ironic that is?