‘Down Time Deepened My Appreciation’

Mother Nature decided on May 13 it was time for a shut down. That morning, I never made it out for the morning paper, did not get my precious cup of caffeinated coffee, did not shower or do all the things that come in the pre-work hours.
A viral infection of some sort, with cardiac-like symptoms laid me low, brought me to sit on the back steps, and there, be found, just prior to passing out.
After that, I remember paramedics asking questions, but I can’t remember what, and chewing aspirin, then, out to a waiting stretcher and off to Cape Regional Medical Center’s emergency room and a non-expected “down time” of three days.
The jury is still out on the cause of that spell, but whatever it was is immaterial at this point.
The down time deepened my appreciation for what other people did for me; what the community has provided; the chance to meet people from distant places.
Take, for example, the woman in the housekeeping department. I detected an accent, and asked where she came from before here.
“Jamaica,” she said with a smile.
With a glimmer in her eye, as she wiped down the floor and table near my bed, she told me the island grows all sorts of delicious fruits, and the climate there is most pleasant, she added.
She still has family in Jamaica, but hasn’t been back to visit in a few years, although she has plans to return.
“The government has been in power so long, everything is messed up,” she said, shaking her head.
“Sixty-five Jamaican dollars for one American, a soda costs $70,” she said.
Hurricane Gilbert tore the roof off her home in 1988, she said.
“It was a fine zinc roof,” she added. The first time I ever heard of a zinc roof, much less someone telling me with a certain amount of pride, they possessed such a superior roof, albeit gone in a terrible storm.
The next day, we got to talking about me being discharged, and how everlastingly slow things seem to move as I awaited the all-important discharge paper, a feeling like making bail, or have the parole board give you a pass to walk.
“The only thing that comes fast is trouble,” she said, again, not stopping to chat, but keeping on with her work.
“Trouble comes fast, yes it does,” she said.
I thought back to my last day of “freedom” at work, May 12, as one of most wicked northeast storms to pelt Cape May County. Yes, we had warning of high winds and tides, but so what? That sort of thing happens all the time.
Telling people in Cape May County to batten down the hatches for a northeaster is like warning Eskimos to get a new snow shovel because a snowstorm is heading for the village.
Although I spent that last day of work updating the Herald’s Web site, chronicling as best I could what the storm was doing to wires and closing roads, I had no idea it was as bad as it was.
In retrospect, it was a mini-March 1962 storm. The winds kept the high tides in, and the high tide got even higher. There was nowhere for the water to go.
Cars and streets were flooded. The county declared a limited state of emergency and suspended tolls on Ocean Drive bridges for a day.
It was a bad situation, and it came fast, just as the woman from Jamaica said.
Did I miss something, or were we truly made aware of the impending disaster that was looming? Maybe next time, we will be a bit more alert when the National Weather Service issues a forecast for a serious northeast storm.
My “time out” made me empathize with folks who are bed-ridden.
To be confined to a prone or nearly prone position for more than a night’s sleep is too much for me to comprehend. It’s not easy getting used to the confined life: asking someone when you want to go to the bathroom; having food served to you when you have worked off the last meal; relying on someone to bring you cold water, medication or anything else.
The time out, thanks to Mother Nature, was probably time I needed, but would never have taken unless it was ordered by a higher authority.
I’ve read men take better care of their cars than they do of themselves; there may be truth in that.
Perhaps that’s why trouble comes fast.