After the 8-week rehab class, I was placed in a maintenance class for people needing supplemental oxygen. This is where I met my two boys: Sherman and Dick or, as they would argue, Dick and Sherman.
Sherman was a long-haul UPS driver who did the same run every night. He would stop at the same places, eat at the same diners and enjoyed the solitude of the road. He was very quiet, still very connected with UPS and goes to a monthly luncheon of their retired drivers. He is in his mid 80’s.
He visits his wife every month at the cemetery. I once asked him how she died and tears welled up in his eyes as he told me the story. She had her varicose veins stripped in one leg and was preparing for surgery on her other leg. They were sitting side by side in their chairs and he noticed that she just stopped breathing. She had a blood clot. She was gone.
He still lives in the house they shared but his two daughters are there as well. I tell him my job is to yap at him in rehab and his girls can take over at home. We women have him surrounded!
Dick was a meat cutter who is also in his 80’s. He worked hard and raised four really great kids. I have met all of them. He says that he used to go to work and go home. He never spoke to other people and was just very quiet. When he retired, he started coming out of his shell. Believe me, the shell is now gone!
One evening after he retired, he asked his wife what was for dinner. She announced that she, too, was now retired and that he was in charge of dinner. He taught himself how to cook and now spends weekends making huge quantities of food in containers for his friends, family, and me. He makes a killer Dirty Rice, Michael’s favorite. He says it keeps his mind busy and gives him something to do.
We talk a lot about restaurants, food, cooking techniques, jokes and newspaper articles. He also does not allow a pretty girl to pass by without saying, ”Hello!” in a big booming voice.
He, Sherman and I always meet 45-minutes before class in the lobby of the hospital and talk. Well, Dick’s voice is loud so the whole hospital hears our conversations and often other people will join in. We have about eight people who regularly join us now and we talk, laugh and have a good time.
Sherman told me that this has changed his life. He said that they never were silly or laughed at his house and he now looks forward to being at rehab and making other people laugh. At his age, he has just discovered this gift.
I am considered the rabble-rouser. I deny it, of course, by saying that I am but a gentle flower blowing in the breeze. Everyone in the room laughs. If anything happens, I blame it on Sherman, whether he is there or not.
I tease Sherman that he used to have a sterling reputation before I got a hold of him. He came in one day with a huge bandage on his arm. We were in the middle of the gym on the bikes when the nurse at the end of the room asked him what had happened. He said he had fallen down.
“Are you going to buy that story?” I asked the nurse. “What really happened is that Sherman was dancing naked on the table tops after two Martinis (he does love his Martinis), slipped and fell, thus the injury. Everyone laughed. Sherman turned bright red but was laughing really hard.
Dick has told me that the time we spend talking and laughing before class on Tuesdays and Thursdays is what he looks forward to all week. It is the best of his week.
I love both of them dearly. My life is sillier, richer, happier and just plain funnier for having them in it.
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