I'm eager to process and digest what is happening here. It's interesting. Only 200 massages will be done. After that, it's over. I'm doing 100 of them. Most of the clients will be able to have one or two massages over the next couple of months. Doesn't sound like much. I massage my regular private clients once a week. I know them very well. I know their bodies, their conditions, where they go, what they do, how they're feeling.
With the PWAs, this will probably be the last time I massage any of them. These massages may be the last time anyone massages them ever again.
One of the clients I recently wrote about, the guy who was entering his final year as an Architecture student in college and had lost all of his previous work which was required for a senior year course and decided to give it all up because he thought he wouldn't be around long enough for it to be worthwhile to continue his studies, spoke of the idea of touch, how important it is and was, and how little of it he receives now, and will, in the future.
So should I worry about the technical aspects of massaging him? Or will it be just as effective if not more if I merely show him some love and caring and attention through the power of touch. Which approach will provide him a greater degree of healing? He could only sit upright due to severe acid reflux. I scoured the building looking for some cushions that could support him in that way. Most of these guys who I used to massage remember me well. I always find that surprising. I don't consider myself one of those memorable people. But here, in the capacity that I filled, given the life situations of these people, I am memorable. Maybe even in a special status.
But, of course, the real question always boils down to how much compassion can one generate and share with these clients? It doesn't matter who I am. As the saying goes, "it's not about me," but it could just as well be me, or you or anybody else, at any given time.
Massage #16
I used to massage him frequently back in the day. Nice man. Soft-spoken, gentle, cheerful, and stressed. But with a good attitude on life. One thing struck me, though we talked about many things in our short time together. This goes back to touch again. He's given up on the idea of anyone finding him attractive enough to touch in any way anymore. Mind you, this is not an obviously disabled man, quite the contrary. He's very active. He does visual display for auto dealerships during the holiday seasons and cleans houses for several members of a prominent family in town.
He doesn't go out much. Has a 32-year-old son who is attending a local college and who still asks him for money. Actually, he only began asking his dad, my client, for money recently. The son was the product of a marriage that did not last long. My client is a gay man. We did not get into the details of why he married. They apparently divorced shortly after the son was born and the mother forbid any contact with the son ever since.
Somehow, the son and father got in touch with each other seven years ago, when the son was 25, and have been close ever since. Again, it's easy to judge, but this is such a unique situation that all you can really do is scratch your head and listen. Because it does not make any sense. There is no logic to it. And maybe there shouldn't be.
We human beings, especially in our society, have a tendency to try to put situations in neat, little boxes. It's easier on our minds. We like labels. We like square, concrete, black and white. We don't like grey. There's a lot of grey out there in the real world.
The father and son talk every day, my client tells me. Imagine that. Gay father with AIDS who had no contact with the son for the first 25 years of his life, lends the son money fairly often so it seems, and they have a better relationship than most people in this world. Like I said, there's a lot of grey.
Massage #17
Here's a character for you -- and not the only one of the day. Read about my next client. This man is living in pain. And I am smarter and more knowledgeable for it. He contracted AIDS early enough to be unfortunate enough to receive high doses of AZT, a cancer-fighting drug at the time akin to chemotherapy. Unfortunately, AZT in high doses messes with the health of your bones, your skeletal structure, one of the body's principal systems it relies upon to survive and do things.
So this client has two artificial hips. That's good. The bad part is that artificial hips don't last forever. In fact, they only last something like ten years. Then they start to do really strange things like dig into parts of your body that you'd rather not experience. Thus, the pain. Both hips need to be replaced again. That sucks.
He describes himself as "an itinerant gospel piano player." How's that for an erudite, cultured human being who has clearly accumulated both talent and knowledge early in his life but somewhere along the way took a few left turns?
For instance, there's the gunshot wound in the right side of his chest that he was the recipient of in 1982. . He very willingly showed it to me but refused to discuss its origins.
He was actually in college studying music during the Vietnam War. Then the draft came along and he applied for C.O. (Conscientious Objector) status. He spoke with his local pastor who suggested enrolling in Bible College. I'm not sure what happened there but here he is now. That's right, he's still here. Still making music. Perhaps not as a symphony musician as he might have become. But he's living and fighting. And on a given day, that's nothing to be ashamed of. Plus, he's an engaging and entertaining person to speak with and provide some measure of relief to. And in the end, he was grateful. Being able to help a person with that kind of life, and even to think and write about it later, is pretty good, too. But then again, it's not about me, is it?
Massage #18
How do people get AIDS anyway? Well, one way is from sharing needles used to inject drugs into their bodies. I suppose G.T., the jazz musician I befriended four years ago here who was actually a resident in the facility, contracted it that way. I remember him telling me one evening that I took him out to see some jazz, that in Europe, the doctors consider heroin and cocaine good drugs. American doctors don't know shit, he claimed, or something to that effect. But this story is not about G.T. We'll have to find a place to tell his story some other time, some other place. His, however, is perhaps the best. But that's not now.
This guy is now a non-resident, but used to be a resident here. Told me that he came here weighting 120 pounds with a month to live, according to the doctors (American doctors, no doubt). He's actually quite spry for his age. Still lifts weights. He told me that he doesn't want to become an old man. He complained that at a recent physical exam, his height was measured at 5'8" but that he used to be 5'11". While stretching him, he wanted to know if that could restore his original height. I replied that anything was possible.
He was diagnosed at 65. He's 72 now. This is a guy with a very positive, almost indomitable, fighting spirit. He will not go down and if he does, it will be swinging.
His name sounded familiar to me on several counts. He used to get massages here when I used to work her but never with me. Not that I can recall anyway. But he had been arrested not long ago and it was in the newspaper. The State Legislature passed a law allowing needle exchange programs to exist but left it up to the local District Attorney to decide whether it could actually take place. Yes, it sounds a little screwy to me too.
Anyway, he formed a group to do the needle exchanges and started it up in earnest exchanging thousands of needles until the D.A. stepped in and...arrested him and several others. Now they're trying to get the Legislature to re-write the law so that the program can exist and nobody can get arrested. You know what they say, "Isn't that illegal? Yeah, but not in Texas."
No comments:
Post a Comment