Thursday last I ventured with an older gentleman to some local hospitals. We called on the elderly and infirm in hopes to raise their spirits. This guy’s a pro—he’s been doing this for years, visiting sick people in the hospital, praying for any who request it, listening to them ramble about stories of the old country or of one of the many wars, always with a broader smile than I can invoke on my face, the kind of smile that gets both eyes, your nose and your teeth involved. That smile cheers them up more than anything, people who have nobody or few somebodies to come and visit them when they fall or get an infection or go through surgery or when their mind starts to wonder why it keeps wandering. Hold that thought…

Breakfast of Champions I can recommend to those of you who enjoy Vonnegut, can stomach pessimism and who understand satirically symbolic uses of sex or violence. If you answered “no” to two or more of those, probably go read something else after this post. Thing is, summarizing Vonnegut falls somewhere between summarizing Monty Python and summarizing The Taming of the Shrew—I cannot possibly show what really happened. Regardless, Vonnegut employed, yet again, the theme of every life counts. He takes every character and ventures off to tell their story until we know enough for him to tack a colossal etcetera or “and so on” to the end of their tale, the attention-deficit version of storytelling. Through this, he forms one thought: all of us or none of us are the main characters of life’s story. The good side of this theme is that he values every human life. The bad side of this is that he devalues (some might argue “deconstructs”) the notion that there are significant, wholesome characters in the epic we call “history.” I tend to think, for instance, the world has hated few men more than Adolf Hitler. I also think few people have been more loved in history than people like Ghandi, Momma T, Dr. King and, of course, Jesus. I agree with him but perhaps disagree with some of his delivery. For the time, let’s work with what Father Kurt and I agree with—valuing every human life. Hold that thought too…

I also read book two of Herbert’s Dune this weekend—the Muad’dib. About halfway through, I realized that I wasn’t reading book two, only part two of Dune. Why yes, my people, I do in fact feel like a moron. Technically, I’ve yet to finish Dune. Thought it was a trilogy in one volume, but turned out to be a really really really long sci-fi novel. Oh well, more fun for me. Paul develops his prescience in this part, something Herbert displays in dream-like vision sequences. Paul’s mind opens up and sees every possible path from a given situation, helping him empathize with people yet to be born. Through this, he navigates present danger and future apocalypse alike.

You know, I’ve tried to live the kind of life that helps other people. I’m not patting myself on the back here, ride with me for a second…

What I mean is, I have friends that do better at investing in the next generation than I do—investing in youth or mentoring relationships. They’re more like Paul, they see coming dangers and invest in the future now. Me? I’m a bit more like Vonnugut who shows up as a broken character in his own broken story. I’ve always had friends in crisis. One goes through a divorce before thirty, one loses all faith in God, one goes to prison, one gets chewed up by a church, one goes on a long bout with drugs only to walk a painful road to recovery, one nearly gets arrested for dealing, one gets married and a month after his honeymoon his wife developed leukemia. I struggle with the mentoring thing, but deep down I think I’ve been there for friends in crises. Especially back when I worked at the hospital.

More than this, I’ve always thought about checking in at a nursing home and collecting stories from the dying, help them spread the word about their lives, help others see how even dying lives matter. Those nursing homes are our houses of the dying, by the way. We put people there. We stay away unless we land a job at a home or if we’re trying to hang around grandma and land a stake in her will. We fear death, the look of death and hope to be forever twenty-one. There’s another way, a harder way but a better way. We could face death, spend time with the dying, hear their stories.

A couple of years ago, I started collecting stories for story our life. I’ll write a post on it sometime. In the midst of that, Grandma Schaubert wrote me her life story and my Grandpa Jerry’s life story. I wept when I read them—their struggles at twenty-five were pretty much the same as my own, and they turned out okay. I asked my Great Grandmother Della McCormick about our family past, she and my Grandpa Deano Bubba started telling stories about different relatives—Pentecostal preachers and murderers who got out of prison in two years, simple farmers and great businessmen, all valuable lives, even the one who didn’t value life.

I guess what I’m saying is I’m looking forward to hospital calls on Thursdays. I’m looking forward to spending time with the wounded and forgotten human lives that changed the course of history. I’m looking forward to being a character in their broken stories.

After all, that’s probably what I’ve liked doing all along.

PS> How do sick or dying people make you feel?