Unlikely Angel

When I was little, my parents always taught me the ins and outs, rights and wrongs of society in the 1960s. I was three when I first learned of my parents’ hatred for other races, especially blacks. I grew up in a household where I wasn’t even allowed to have friends that were black. They lectured me for hours when I was young about how wrong it was that the country let “these minorities” onto “our land.” I grew up with an instilled hatred for anyone that wasn’t like me.

The older I became, the deeper the hatred grew. I refused to work in an environment that was not all whites, and I was met with little opposition. By my late 20s, I was the executive manager of a big wig corporation that manufactured aeronautic equipment, and I had a lot to say when it came to allowing minorities a job in my company. They had to work harder than any of the white men, be more pristine, and show up earlier just to get any sort of wage from me.

My white employees loved me, and that was my biggest concern, making sure they were satisfied. My company was well on its way to being the biggest and best aeronautic equipment manufacturer in the South.

However, by my early 40s, my health began to deteriorate. I was in and out of the hospital unable to successfully do the job I had been doing for nearly 15 years. I bounced from emergency room to emergency room with the same result each time: nothing. The only information the doctors told me was that I was working myself too hard, and the stress was getting the best of my health. However, I knew there was something seriously wrong. I had always been a healthy kid and even a healthy adult. I rarely got sick, and when I did it was nothing but a common cold that would pass in a few days. This time was different; I could hardly eat, and I was barely sleeping. When I woke up in the mornings I was light headed and dizzy, making it difficult to stand.

This cycle went on for nearly two years. My bills were piling up after the company decided I was becoming a liability instead of being an asset. I had some savings but nothing substantial, nothing I could live off of for an extended period of time. I had to figure out what the problem was and fast. My illness was getting worse; I began getting excruciatingly painful headaches that would leave me exhausted and hardly able to move. My body seemed to be attacking itself from the inside.

I had no one to turn to for support for my unknown illness. My parents had both died before my 30th birthday, and I had no siblings. My work hours before I got sick had left little room to form friendships. My evenings without companionship had gone unnoticed until my illness took my job from me. I was so lonely and scared, but I never got so much as an email from an acquaintance at work. It was as if I had never really existed.

The last time I went into the hospital, I remember, was three days before my 42nd birthday. The doctors did their usual tests, and still nothing, but I refused to let them send me home without a diagnosis this time.

There was this one volunteer, a black guy, whose name was Jeremiah, I think. He looked a little younger than I was and always had a smile on his face. I hated him; my resentment from childhood came bubbling back to the surface and his optimistic demeanor just fueled the flame. I used to cuss and holler at him to get out of my room because I didn’t tolerate “his kind of people” so close to me. I know he heard me tell the doctor one day that I didn’t want a black man in my room because my disease would only get worse if he was there. Still, every day around the same time Jeremiah would come by my room, pushing a food cart, with a smile on his face, no matter what he overheard or how many times I yelled.

The doctors were getting closer to finding out the real cause of my illness, but the answer was still slyly evading them. I yearned to have someone to talk to, someone I could tell how truly scared of dying I was, but there was no one. Soon, Jeremiah began coming into my room again, always smiling, and now I was too exhausted to care. I still glared at him, but I gave up the yelling; it wore me out too much.

One day the doctor came into my room with some grave news. I was bleeding internally, but they couldn’t find the cause. It must have started as a nearly microscopic leak that over many years had developed into a major problem. I was told they would have to do surgery to find the source and when the surgery was over I would need an immediate blood transfusion to make up for the blood I had lost.

I was devastated; I didn’t know how it could get worse and then here Jeremiah comes, strolling down the hall, whistling and smiling. I was furious; how could anyone be so happy to be working in a hospital day after day?

“Good afternoon, Theodore,” spoke Jeremiah. Those were the first words he had ever spoken to me, and that was infuriating.

“What gives you the right to talk to me?” I asked.

“I’m just passin’ along, looked like you could use some cheerin’ up.”

“Not from you,” I replied curtly. He smiled genuinely and shuffled his way out of my room and into the bustling halls of the hospital.

I couldn’t believe he had the nerve to speak to me; who did he think he was? But I didn’t have time to think about it now. The doctors came rushing in beginning to prep me for surgery. I was so nervous I couldn’t think straight; crying was all I could manage. Look at this pathetic state: a middle-aged man crying in the middle of a crowded hospital. The last face I saw before they rolled me into the operating room was the smiling face of Jeremiah.

He was also the first person I saw in the recovery room. There he was, standing over my bed, looking cheerful.

“What are you so happy about?” I groaned.

“I’m just happy that I am here, living life.”

“What’s so great about life right now?”

Before he could answer the doctors came bustling in with news of my operation. The blood transfusion had gone well, but the cause of the bleeding was still unknown. If the perforation wasn’t found soon there was an imminent chance that I would bleed to death. Again the smiling, although more solemn, face of Jeremiah could be seen from the corner of the room. I cried until there were no more tears left to cry, but still he remained, silent and mournful. Finally, when the tears stopped flowing he was there with comforting words. I couldn’t have cared less whom the words were coming from, but I needed that comfort more than ever before.

Jeremiah was the only person that had seemed to show an ounce of compassion toward me since the beginning of my week long stay in the hospital. His color didn’t matter, and at that time I knew it never had. I had been blinded by the unfounded prejudices of my parents. He stayed with me for the rest of the night. We talked as if we were old friends that hadn’t seen each other for a while. I formed the best friendship I had ever had with a man I had only known a week. He was the kindest of fellows, volunteering at the hospital just so that he could make others feel better with his optimism.

After three days of getting to know the real Jeremiah Houser, the bleeding had worsened, but still no one could find the source. I had specialists in and out of my room but still the bleeding continued. Until one day, nearly two weeks after I had entered the hospital I began to feel weaker and weaker as the day progressed. Finally, in the middle of the afternoon I heard his last words, “Have a safe journey, friend,” was uttered by the smiling face of a man that had come to be my angel. If Jeremiah had shown me anything, it was how to truly care for another person.

(C) Nicole Beth