In the 2018 British historical drama mini-series “Mrs. Wilson”, the story of a widow who discovers her husband’s mysterious and secret lives following his death unfolds.
In one early scene, the lovesick couple sit on a park bench talking about writing (which they both do), and life.
“Do you write? About what?” inquires Alec.
“Oh, feelings inside me”, replies a very shy Alison, the soon to be Mrs. Wilson.
“Things I want to express...does that sound ridiculous?”
Alec pauses momentarily.
“Not at all, you want your life to mean something”.
“Yes I do” says Alison.
Alec looks out over the park, then fixes his gaze on Alison.
“Do you ever think there’s a moment in your life when you take a leap and decide, yeah, that’s who I am?”
If we’re lucky, life-moment, “yeah, that’s who I am” leaps are waiting for us when we’re ready for them:
eyes-wide open, full-steam ahead, take no prisoners, this-is-it-no-looking-back leaps of glory.
Sometimes life-moment leaps show up and show out, unannounced, deciding who you are for you.
Gentle shoulder taps, restless whispers, beckoning calls, rendezvous-style engagements with “next”.
Other life-moment leaps aren’t leaps at all, they’re bully-shoves into uncharted unknowns.
Unexpected trips and stumbles across emotional, psychological, spiritual, or relational state lines where a new “who I am” is birthed - unplanned, raw, naked and gasping for air.
2020.
2020 is a leap year.
A calendar leap year.
Technically, a leap year happens when a day is added to years divisible by 4, like 2016, 2024, or this hellacious, train-wreck, shit-show of a year.
2020.
A calendar leap year and my very own personal Year of the Leap.
Covid19, as I now know all too well, picked me up by the scruff of my everything and tossed me into 2020.
Like a bar-bouncer would toss a rowdy drunk out onto a night-blackened, very deserted, very side, very mean street.
Literally breathless, stroked-out, heart-ached, immune system fatigued, drugged-up and dissected.
There was nothing elegantly wasted about my grand entrance into the New Year.
2020, Leap Year, and the Chinese zodiac’s Year of the Rat.
Fitting.
Rats are considered “opportunistic survivors” and widely preferred as subjects of scientific research.
I can relate.
I was leaping, although it didn’t look like it, from my ICU bed, into two major surgeries, and even now, through my cardiac therapy.
Leaping, rat-like, from one survivor back-alley to the next through a hazy, murky night of uncertainties: “We don’t know what’s wrong with you”.
“You had covid19 and the kitchen sink thrown at you”.
“We don’t like the way that looks”.
Leaping, leaping, leaping.
“Helicopter”, is a Sixx AM song with lyrics that have haunted my leaped-up 2020:
“I’ve got Jesus, breathing down my neck/
Angels gather like crows...”
Lots of fluttering wings have accompanied all the leaping this year.
The other night I was rummaging through my phone and came across a few video clips of early hospital and therapy moments.
I showed Lauren.
We watched one.
Then another.
And another.
Both of us welled up.
My God.
Scary, scarring moments.
Profoundly grateful, shot through and peppered with “Why?”, but “Look at how far you’ve come” moments.
Stone-silent, soul-stirring, head-shaking moments.
Leap moments.
All this leaping has left interior ripples, a new normal unsteadiness, the emergence of a “rickety gait”.
It’s unsettling at best, unnerving at it’s darkest.
“‘Rona ripples”.
Like “diminished lung capacity”, or “lung scarring”.
It’s the result of my double viral pneumonia with a bacterial infection leap.
It may or may not heal entirely, time will tell.
Just makes the rest of my lungs put out a little more when called upon.
“‘Rona ripples”.
Like “vocal paresis”.
It’s the ripple of a carotid endarterectomy leap that therapy hopefully stills.
If not, Bob Dylan cover band here I come.
“‘Rona ripples”.
Like “Covid fog”.
This ripple is new.
The University of Maryland School of Medicine estimates that “between 30-50% of people who have had coronavirus infection with clinical manifestations are going to have some form of mental health issues, ranging from anxiety or depression, to nonspecific symptoms that include fatigue, sleep, and waking abnormalities, to not being fully recovered in terms of the abilities of performing academically, occupationally, and potentially physically...”
The verdict is still out on the covid fog leap for me, but there are plenty of days that I feel, well, ghost-like.
Vapid, misty, drifting.
A little lost.
A little foggy.
“‘Rona ripples”.
2020 leaps.
Looking back, I don’t know how many, if any, 2020 leaps I was prepared for.
My doctors told me that being in great physical shape (their words, not mine), and having a strong heart helped in saving my life.
I didn’t feel that way at the start of 2020, but apparently I was a better specimen than I thought.
Who knew?
Everything else blindsided me.
Everything else.
Every.
Thing.
Else.
“At my favorite place tomorrow...the cottage...check the weather, upper ‘70’s for the near future, yeah baby...you back to feeling semi-normal?”
That text came to me Friday afternoon, August 14th, from Bill, my brother-in-law, my only sister’s husband.
A typical, no big deal, maybe a rubbing-it-in-a-little-about-the-weather kind of text, but still, just typical.
Until it wasn’t.
“Nice...hope you guys have a good vacation...” I texted back.
A little jealous.
A lot jealous.
As far as his inquiry into my health - my triple bypass had been only a little over a week before - I was honest:
“Semi normal is a stretch...not writhing in abject pain anymore is a much better description...”
All typical.
All the kind of exchanges we volleyed back and forth regularly.
For decades.
Before texting.
Before emails.
We’re old.
He’s older.
I reminded him of that often.
“Its a start” he responded.
“Along with no impending death :)”
Nothing eerily premonition-ish about the death reference, until it was.
Until it was.
Saturday afternoon word spread like wildfire through the family network that something bad, really bad, had happened to Bill.
He died.
Suddenly, instantly.
Under perfect skies.
Only yards from the glistening waters of Lake Ontario.
At his favorite place in the world, the cottage.
Something bad.
Really bad.
Bill wasn’t just family by marriage.
He was arguably my very best friend, and had been for nearly 40 years.
It’s hasn’t been easy trying to cast our friendship in the right slant and shade of light.
40 years is a long time.
Bill’s last few years proved difficult - physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually - his leaps were taking a toll.
But I loved him and I wasn’t ready to lose him.
His loss coming on the heels of my covid-centric catastrophe was overwhelming.
Bill died from an undetected heart condition.
A “heavy heart” they call it.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
It felt like it should have been my leap.
It felt like it could easily have been my leap, considering the complex turns my life had taken up to that moment.
But that’s the thing about life - and death - moment leaps.
They can startle you and leave you unsteady.
Unsettled.
Unnerved.
Uncentered.
Faith, family and a holy host of fluttering wings can moor you until the next.
The next leap.
“Dad, Dan wants to talk to you”.
My daughter Paige had walked our dog and had just come home, running into our neighbor Dan.
He wanted to chat.
Dan had given me some great advice about what I was about to go through.
He’d had a triple bypass a few years back, and he was eager to help out a soon to be member of the “zipper club”.
A reference to the scar I was soon to have on my chest.
His stories helped me through a few scary times.
Dan and I were “neighbor-friends” - we didn’t really hang out, but we talked a lot.
About life.
About other neighbors.
About our gardens.
About our bad backs.
Dan loved going to flea markets - and he’d tell me about his 10 dollar lawn mowers and 20 dollar snow blowers.
If I needed it, didn’t have it and Dan did, I could borrow it.
A neighbor-friend.
A good one.
For over 20 years.
“I finally found out the cause of my bad back”.
Dan was fighting back tears - the first I’d ever seen - when I met him in the yard between our houses.
“Doctors tell me I have stage 4 bladder cancer, got maybe 6 months to a year, depending on treatment”.
I’ve finally learned not to blurt out things like, “You’re kidding!”, or “No way!” in those sacred settings.
People aren’t joking with that information.
He looked rattled.
Shook.
Justifiably scared.
I was quiet.
“I’m so sorry”.
We talked for a while - about the surgery I’d had about a month ago at that point and about his freshly revealed diagnosis.
“I go tomorrow to find out how extensive it is and what kind of treatment is available.”
Leaps.
Dark ones.
Hard ones.
Impossible ones.
I never saw Dan again.
I went to their house one afternoon a few weeks back and talked to one of his sons.
“I wanted to check on your Dad, how is he?”
He looked at me, paused, then said, “Dad died last week”.
My shock was palpable.
5 and a half weeks from diagnosis to his death at home.
A massive leap.
An unfathomable leap.
I miss Dan.
When I go outside now I look over at his shed, half expecting to see him walk out towards me with a crooked smile saying, “Hey Chuck, how’s it going?”.
Dan was a good neighbor-friend, and I wasn’t ready to lose him.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
It feels like it should have been my leap.
It feels like it could easily have been my leap, considering the complex turns my life has taken up to this moment.
But that’s the thing about life - and death - moment leaps.
They can startle you and leave you unsteady.
Unsettled.
Unnerved.
Uncentered.
Faith, family and a holy host of fluttering wings can moor you until the next.
The next leap.
2020.
A leap year.
“Do you ever think there’s a moment in your life when you take a leap and decide, yeah, that’s who I am?”
Yes.
Yes I do.
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