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grayparticlecollective · 1 month ago

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Yesterday at 9am I arrived at the hospital to have my gallbladder removed. By the time 9:30 came around I was on a gurney with a pick line in my right arm, staged and ready to be taken into the operating room. In the holding bay just across from mine was a man named Matthew, who was roughly my age. I only know his name because a nurse was trying to communicate with him. Sitting at the foot of his gurney was either a Sheriff's Deputy or perhaps a Correctional Officer guarding him. His right eyeball itself seemed to be the same color as the bruised skin around it. His face was purple and looked like it had been slashed multiple times. I can only assume his injuries were doled out by another inmate who had some sort of makeshift weapon with a razor blade embedded into it. Upon seeing all of this, it took my mind away from the procedure I was about to undergo. I recognized just how much better I had it than he did. I have no idea what the man had done to get locked up, nor the reasons for his injuries but I found myself wanting a pen and paper to write a short note to give to him letting him know that i hoped he was able to recover from his injury, and to let him know that somebody cared. It didn't appear that he had any family at his bedside, and I imagine the presence of law enforcement likely placed the burden of stigma onto him. I haven't prayed in a very long time, but I said one for him. Not just for a successful recovery, but for the insight to change as he recovered, in whatever way he needed to in order to find peace in his life still to come.

At about the same time, the surgical team came to wheel me into the operating room. There were pneumatic cuffs wrapped around each leg from my knee to my ankle which were to be filled and deflated repeatedly in an alternating manor, meant to keep blood flow in my legs optimal, and to combat the risk of blood clotting. Next, the Anesthesiologist applied a piece of paper with adhesive over my beard to ensure the gas mask a proper seal. After about 30 seconds, i noticed a faint smell, and then the wah-wahs kicked in. The rest was pretty much a blur, until I found myself coming to with excruciating pain, perhaps the worst that I have ever experienced. The anesthesiologist made a quick decision to put me back under to render me completely unaware to everything

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grayparticlecollective · 2 months ago

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Homes becoming Houses

My Grandfather on my dad's side grew up in Winston-Salem NC, in a beautiful spacious and modern home on Reynolds Park Rd. He was the youngest of 12 kids, and his eldest siblings were well into their 30's by the time he was born in 1923.

By the time 1942 came, My Grandfather left his job working at a local clothing cleaner and enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor. He soon crossed the Atlantic as a member of the North Carolina National Guard Signal Corps, fresh from basic training at Camp Crowder, Missouri. He crossed the English Channel with the largest Armada ever conceived by mankind as part of Operation Neptune. He landed on Omaha beach, thankfully, a couple of days after D-Day. Unfortunately, it wasn't time enough to spare him from having to see a beach full of G.I.'s that didn't make it off the sand, or out of the surf.

He spent countless nights trying to sleep in holes dug by himself. if he was lucky, he found a hole dug by another soldier who had since moved up the battlefield. Sometimes he slept in craters made from artillery shells. He recounted to me that on one occasion, to avoid mortar rounds, that he and another GI dove into a hole that turned out to be a latrine. He was figuratively and literally in the shit.

I can remember him telling me how the night sky lit up from a combination of tracer rounds, anti-aircraft guns, and the barrage of shelling from Destroyers and Battleships. I could feel just how conflicted he was about this experience. On one hand he had to have been terrified, and on the other hand the different bright colors blitzing across the otherwise dark night sky. In retrospect, I imagine it provided means of dissociation for him, and many others as well.

He also had to see the horrendous sight of fellow men, women and children, both deceased and living who had been decimated by the ghastly ambition of evil men. He was one of the lucky men who made it back home, especially considering he also had a purple heart tacked onto him. The story goes as such: He was sitting in a classroom during training when a bullet came up through the floor from a room below via accidental discharge, entering through the back of his knee and went clean through. Luckily it missed the significant parts of the knee itself, allowing him to recover before even leaving the US for war. I still wonder if that is actually what happened. He didn't speak much on it.

He made it back and met my grandmother. They had four children, with my father being born in 1954 as their third child. He built a house on Reynolds Park Rd. just across the street and down about 70 yards from his childhood home. all of the surrounding neighbors were mostly all family members. I can remember bits and pieces from that house. I remember the rod iron columns that held up the front awning, and the ivy that climbed up the front of the bricks. My favorite part was the climbing sized Magnolia in the front yard.

Fast forwarding to the early 1990's, the neighborhood had seen a steep decline in safety, as the crack epidemic raged. I used to get scared sleeping over there at night, mainly because the curtains were backlit by the streetlights, and shadows constantly moved across them. It was right beside the road so when cars passed, they were easily heard. In my mind as a 4-year-old, I was convinced that the shadow monsters were outside coming to get me.

Both of my grandparents were very strong in their Christian faith. Both of them were actively involved with charitable organizations, and very active in their church, Oaklawn Baptist, which was roughly a mile and a half from their house, as a crow flies. Community outreach is what gave both of them a deeper appreciation for life.

One night in early autumn of 1992, a man in his twenties knocked on their door and my grandmother answered. He claimed to be hungry, so my grandmother made him a sandwich and handed it to him on the front porch. My father and my uncle soon both heard about this and strongly cautioned her that what she was doing was dangerous, and that she must stop answering the door at night. Unfortunately, her core nature to be compassionate to everyone on the basis of her faith changed everything that she and my grandfather thought they knew about life.

One night soon after the conversation happened, my mom and dad had taken my sister and I to the Dixie Classic Fair in Winston-Salem for our annual pilgrimage for carnival rides, caramel apples, jazzy hair and plastic trumpets. It was perhaps the closest thing to experiencing Disney for most of the kids in Winston-Salem. The city had drastically changed from the loss of textiles, and the collapse of the old tobacco industry that made it what it once was. People were poor.

On that very night, the man came knocking again. My grandmother opened the door to pass him some food, and he pushed his way inside, striking my grandmother in the face. My grandfather, around 68 at the time, got thrown down the steps into the basement, and was locked out. The man was trying to rape my grandmother and struck her with his fists many times. My Grandfather managed to make his way back upstairs, grabbed the man who was much younger and quicker, and managed to get him out of the house, and then boxed and scrapped with this vile human, attempting to get him to the road to throw him in front of a passing car to stop the attack. All three of them ended up in the emergency room-- the same emergency room. That was the first time someone had to explain to me what stitches were, as both of my grandparents had quite a few, along with their faces being battered. that was the first time i ever saw someone with a black eye. My own grandmother.

Someone thought it permissible to have the man who assaulted both of them in the same hospital. All i know for sure is that my family was furious about this.

If i remember correctly, they sold that house and moved within a month. The man was sentenced somewhere between 10-20 years. I remember around the age of 9 or 10 noticing that it was always a good idea to announce myself on my way up the steps to the kitchen in the new house. I didn't know what PTSD was then, but she had it bad. Somehow, I remember the feeling of knowing that I needed to do so, though at the time I couldn't put two and two together on what made her so easily startled.

Most of my memories with my grandparents happened at the house they moved to after the incident. It is the Grandma's House that I remember, though I am certain that it wasn't the same for them, as my eyes fill with water at the thought of losing comfort in the place I call home. Looking back at all of it, the worst part was the impression that was made that made me believe that when I grew up, the same thing could happen to my own parents. That still scares me to this day. When it happened, I truly thought I was learning what I had to be able to do to protect my own parents later in life, and a fear of being away from them, as I wouldn't be able to protect them.

I often wonder who the man is, and if he's still alive--- and if he is, who is he now. I wonder if I have been in the same store as him, or if he had children my age, that I might know. I don't know his name, and I think it is best that way. In a way, it is one more layer of security, just not knowing. I like to think that I can see evil as it approaches, but it's hard to see evil coming if evil sees you first. I think the most important thing I can take away from all of this is the fact that my grandmother never lost her faith, or her faith in the good will of mankind, and that in itself is a miracle.

This is written In Loving Memory of my Resilient Grandparents, and the things that they did to make it in spite of what happened.

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