Dearest Rachel –
It’s been a while since we went walking like this in the woods; not only were the last two weeks that I’ve met up with Lars been rather short on actual walking, he’s been hosting friends from overseas, so I’m something of a bit player in those days (and I’ve rather had to watch what I say, as I don’t know Roland’s position on certain topics). Not a complaint as such – it was nice to take things easy, and I certainly got to see places I haven’t for a long time, if at all – but I did feel rather out of practice yesterday. I was relieved that we cut our walk short at Winnetka Road, rather than going up to Willow; and not just because it began to rain as we approached the parking lot to head out for lunch (although that certainly played a part, too).
But once we were settled in for lunch at one of our usual places (and I wish you’d had a chance to check this place out; their gyros are noticeably better than those nearby us, and if I can tell, that’s saying something), Lars was going over photos of himself and his friends. Not just the couple that had been visiting him over the past two weeks, but others he’s befriended and visited elsewhere in Europe. I really think he misses being able to get out and visit them. Not that he could necessarily do so even if he had fewer commitments here; some of the places he was showing me are gone, as are some of the people. This is what happens over time; people age, and some depart.
But there was a couple in particular he described in passing that caught my attention; they didn’t occupy much of the photo collection he was showing me (if at all), but their story got me thinking. Arne was a relative of our ‘Aunt’ Clara, who along with her husband Jack, were close to my family as well as to Lars. We have a fair number of family stories that I really should get to writing down – some of them even include you, if only as an extra in the scene. But for the moment, I have to establish that I don’t think either of us have met Arne or his wife Eva.
According to Lars, Clara didn’t exactly approve of Eva when Arne first brought her into the family. Yes, she was Norwegian, but there was something – and he didn’t get into it (maybe he didn’t know the whole story, which makes sense) – that didn’t sit well with her. But, of course, in matters of the heart, sisters don’t get much of a say in one’s choice.
Somewhere along the way, something happened – again, Lars didn’t go into details – and Eva wound up in a wheelchair, a hemiplegic. I had to look that up later, as I thought that meant the same as paraplegia; turns out, while they both mean half paralyzed, it’s a different half. Rather than being paralyzed from the waist down, for instance, she was paralyzed on one side of her body, and has been for some twenty-five years or so.
But that hasn’t stopped her from living a productive life. She still (at least, as far as Lars is aware, as he described them both in the present tense) works in their local library; she still participates in church and civic organizations; she still travels on a regular basis. It’s just that, in order to do all these things, she has Arne behind her the whole time, facilitating her ability to get to one thing or another in order to be everything she wants to be. He’s been supporting her like this for a quarter of a century, despite whatever differences Clara might have seen in them.
And I think you can guess what went through my mind as Lars described this pair; had the accident been a little less serious than it was, would I have been like Arne? Would I be able to be there for you, to help you either rehabilitate yourself, or just get through each day in your reduced state? Would I have been able to fulfill the vows of “in sickness (or rather, infirmity) and in health”?
I’d certainly like to think so, although there are moments when I wonder. I’ve been reading my early letters, and noting how frustrated I would get with Chompers’; imagine how I would be with two incapacitated individuals in the house. Then again, you would at least be able to both tell me what you needed or wanted – as well as acting as a moderator whenever I would get too overheated about one thing or another the old boy might do in his waning months – so while I’d be doing some measure of double duty, it wouldn’t necessarily be as emotionally draining as all that.
If you were confined to a wheelchair, but still able to get around, we might have still been able to cover the world like Daniel and I have done – albeit perhaps at a slower pace. You wouldn’t be the first such person I’ve seen on my various travels, after all, so we might have had something close to a normal life together. I think I could have borne with it.
Then again, if the injury had been to your brain, and you were in a comatose or vegetative state, how would that change the calculus? I don’t think it would cross my mind to leave you, if course, but how different would that be from the way things are right now, other than we all would be confined to home and hospital for however long you would live (which could be longer than I could expect to). Granted, that would be a greater burden than Arne has been dealing with, so that’s a little unfair, but it would have been a possibility for us to have had to consider.
Some time after the accident, Ellen told me that when I informed her that the paramedics were doing chest compressions on you, that she was praying(!) that God would take you rather than let you live in such a state; whether paralyzed or worse, she thought you wouldn’t have been able to able such bodily confinement. I’m pretty sure she hadn’t considered that I might reject you in your damaged state – and I’d like to believe that I wouldn’t. But in absence of personally having been tested like Arne with Eva, I can’t say definitively whether I would have been that sort of man for you, the one that you would have needed in order to carry on as best you could.
Now, I may be selling myself short, but I have to acknowledge that I just don’t know. My tea, as you put it once or twice, wasn’t put in that kind of hot water; without that empirical test, it’s just a bag full of dried leaves.
Letters to Rachel 