A VERY SPECIAL PERSON

 by Janet Wertz                                 

I have a belief that the only things we actually own are those which are not for sale.  They are the time each of us is allotted to live on Earth, what we use that time for, and what we do for others.  None of us knows  how long each of us will live.  Some people have only a short time, yet pack a huge life into that brief stay.  Others live long lives; some content to let it evaporate day by day, while others really live each and every day, no matter how many of those days they will  or won’t have. Others take their joy from helping others, both giving and receiving joy.

Military people are special. Each has agreed to give an amount of time to the defense of the nation, and not just for themselves.  Titles of books and movies illustrate this life choice.  Band of Brothers. For some, even after their days of active duty are over, still choose to spend some of their time in that society of military people.

Some, whose active duty days are done, choose to volunteer to spent time with others of that brethren society. One such was recently laid to rest.  He’d earned that rest. Long retired, he volunteered his time visiting veterans in physical rehab and hospice facilities. My father was  his first veteran. Dad had reached the point where he had to be picked up, and put in bed, or on a wheeled gurney. He hated his own helplessness, and the knowledge that he would never recover his previous abilities, including just being able to stand on  his own two feet. I visited him daily, but he was still trapped, helpless to help  himself, bored to the point of not wanting the days remaining to him.

Then the Volunteer walked in. Like Dad, he had been an Air Force officer.  Like us, he and his family had lived in England. Dad’s whole manner changed.  He was completely alive and involved in conversation with this visiting fellow officer. He gave Dad something I couldn’t; a chance to be in conversation with another who had served in some of the same places, even same times as Dad, although they’d had entirely different duties. Stories were traded, smiles and laughter shared. Dad had respite from being the useless cripple he saw himself to be. A gift of shared experiences I couldn’t provide; I was his daughter, not someone on his military level.  The Volunteer visited Dad once a week for the remaining nearly year and a half of his life. He made my Dad’s last days fuller, and less an unwanted burden. Now both men are gone. Maybe they’ve reunited, still swapping stories of, “There I was…”

When you look in the mirror, do you see someone who could be that Volunteer for others? Is it your turn?