A private prison

I work with people with disabilities as a rehab therapist. That means that if someone is sick or hurt or is born with something wrong I try to find ways to strengthen them or make them functional in some other way, to work around the problem.

Right now I am working in the Veteran's hospital in a small city in North Florida... one of those places where the happening spot in town is pretty much Wal-mart. I've got a guy I'm working with who had a severe brain injury, shrapnel in his brain. He is locked in. His motor function was destroyed, so his body is trapped in a rigid spasm, all his muscles at full tension, completely locked. We are pretty sure he is conscious in there, but there is no way to be really sure.

Might he prefer to be dead? There is no way to know for sure. He is 48 years old. Unless neural reconstruction makes some miraculous development, he is going to be like that possibly for decades. I can't imagine wanting to be like that for decades, but it's not my choice. And like I said, there is no way to know for sure.

I've also worked with a few terminal, paralyzed children. They knew they were going to die soon, and they were living in slowly collapsing bodies.

Working with them has made me appreciate what I have a lot more. There have been times when I have been really depressed, but one teenager in particular I worked with really inspired me to take some action and live life as best I can. He was so smart, with it, a cool kid, who would never have sex, a job, or almost anything but his dreams. I used to get really mad at the way some things were run in the redtape bound school system, and me and some teachers were discussing something and I snarled, "That's ludicrous." He loved that, and it became one of his more favorite expressions. His gift to me was reminding me to live while I can. When I say he inspired me, I mean to look deeper, to reach for more humility, sincerity, sensitivity. "While I live I shall." 'Cause you never know when the next one has your name on it. 5 minutes of real, genuine, present openness is worth a thousand distracted days.