So Long, Chester Wheeler(74)

“That’s how it seemed.”

“Interesting how?” I repeated. “Okay. Where to begin?”

There was a massive and very old maple tree growing up right through the middle of the patio, and a big wind shook its branches and sent red and golden leaves flying and spinning in the air. One of them landed on the table between us. Another got caught in my hair and I had to brush it away.

I can’t entirely explain why, but in that moment my life felt like a better place than it had been for as long as I could remember.

“I’m at this intersection in my life,” I began, “where I have to decide if I want to go into a health-care-related job. Nothing as fancy as being a registered nurse. Just a home health-care worker.”

“Don’t say ‘just,’” he interjected.

“You’re right. Sorry. I just got done doing end-of-life care for a man. I wasn’t certified or anything, but he just needed something like a babysitter. So, right, I’m still saying ‘just’ a lot. I hear myself doing it. But I guess that’s different. Anyway, now both his daughter and his ex-wife have been trying to tell me I’m good at this. That it’s something I should consider. You know. Going forward. Right at the moment I still don’t think I agree. But it just keeps coming up. I don’t want to be too quick to dismiss it, you know? The daughter even wants to pay my way through a certification course, but I still don’t know how I feel about that.”

“Okay,” he said. “Try this. If you’re willing, of course. Tell me the thing you liked best about the job you just finished. And then tell me the part you liked least.”

“Oh. I’d have to think about that.”

The coffees came, and we thanked our server and then pulled ourselves back to the conversation at hand. I sipped at my mocha, but it was prohibitively hot.

“What I liked best,” I repeated. “I liked who I was on the job. Even though I didn’t like who he was. He was pretty awful, actually. Mean and callous and thoughtless. Homophobic. But when he needed something, I put that aside, because it was my job to be there for him. I’d agreed to do it, and I took that responsibility seriously. So I guess I liked what I saw in myself, or I might even say what I saw come up and out of me, during that time.”

Another swirl of autumn wind sent maple leaves flying. Brian had to hold a hand over his cup to keep one from landing in his coffee.

He didn’t interject any thoughts. We both knew I hadn’t completed the assignment, so he only waited.

“Least. I guess what I liked least was having to clean up after someone’s . . . you know . . . bodily functions.”

“Felt degrading?”

“A little.”

“It’s really not, though. Not in my opinion, anyway. But I don’t mean to discount your experience.”

“No, go on with that thought. If you have a way to reframe bedpans, I’d honestly like to hear it.”

“Here’s how I look at it,” Brian said. “And you have to believe I’ve come in contact with a lot of unpleasant things that come out of a person’s body. I don’t find it degrading. At all. I think it has the definite potential to be degrading for the patient, but it’s in our power to defuse that, which is a huge service to do for someone who’s dying. Look at it this way. Think about a baby. A baby pees and poops and vomits. A parent cleans it all up. And a parent’s job is not seen as degrading. They care for that baby out of love, and it’s noble. And nobody blames the baby. The baby feels no shame, and nobody tries to shame babies for having no control over their bodily functions. Somehow we see the adults differently, the elderly and the dying, but I’m not sure why. I’m not sure how different it really is. A human body is a fragile, messy undertaking. There’s a time in the middle of our lives when we tend to have it under good control, but coming into the world and going out of the world, we’re much more vulnerable. We need help. And being willing to be that help for someone is a very high calling, in my opinion. It’s really the purest definition of the word serve.”

He fell silent. We both did. I got the sense that he was embarrassed at having said so much.

“You think that was daft,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“I think it was brilliant. Absolutely beautiful.”

A few more beats of silence.

Then I said that thing I’d been so careful not to say before.

“The universe is having its way with me.”

“Not sure I follow,” he said.

“I feel like it’s pushing me.”

“Don’t push back,” he said. “That never pans out.”



I talked about Chester for a really long time. Really. Long. Longer than I realized while I was doing all that talking.

Then I sort of . . . simply . . . came up out of it, the way a person might drift up toward the surface of water for a long time and then suddenly break free.

Having broken the surface, I felt more than a little bit embarrassed.

“But I’m not sure why I’m talking about him so much,” I said.

“Oh, I know why,” Brian said. No apparent doubt or hesitation. Then he backpedaled slightly. “I mean, I think I do. I don’t mean to sound like one of those people who think they know you better than you know you. But you just said you’re not sure, and it seems pretty clear to me.”