The dying man

I spent the better part of my day yesterday feeling sorry for an old man.

Here is part of his story. For over 50 years he has worked as en electrician and engineer. During the first 12 years of his career he worked for a major bakery in Philadelphia, making sure the ovens worked correctly. When they did not, he was the guy who fixed the electrical connections, replaced burned out parts and got them back on line within hours.

The only problem is that at the time,the ovens used a lot of Asbestos as insulation, and when he went to do repairs, dust was everywhere, not all of it Asbestos, but enough to invade this guys body and give me a hell of a lot of cancer.

He is in constant pain and the day before he had the full Chemo affect, so his brain was not nearly as connected as it normally would have been. He served in World War Two. He is smart, has an engaging and warm smile and can sit for about 90 seconds without shifting to avoid the pain in his spine.

This is not the first man I have seen in the last few months in this condition. The last one, another engineer who had found Asbestos in the workplace was also smart and skilled and had worked his way up from the guy who did menial stuff around the plant to the guy in charge of the plant. I sat in a room with him for two days as he talked about his family, his cancer, the available treatments and his plans. He died a few weeks after.

The man from yesterday is in so much pain, I am guessing that his mind, when focused, thinks about the relief that death will bring. While I think it is tough to think about dying, it is also part of our process, one which we have been told not to focus on and if we do, think about god or something.

I think about death enough to know it is around the corner, maybe not the next corner, but a corner that is probably at this point within view. Hearing men who have led honorable lives, men who have fathered and raised children, who have remained married and faithful, have climbed from not much to something, these men in pain are living proof that no one gets out of this place without scars.

One of the things I take away from these encounters is this. When it is on the line, when life is winding down and the writing is on the wall, there is honor in acceptance. There is honor is being strong, fighting the good fight and smiling. Over the past six months or so I have met a few of these men, always men, because when they started working in industrial settings, all the workers were men. These men are all of a certain age, have all worked in mills and factories and all of them look at the beautiful women who always seem to be in the same room and smile.

Pain, death and smiling. I like these men.