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Where Are My Soldiers

Deirdre Miller

    Him: “My soldiers aren’t fighting any more. My little men. I can’t find them. Where are they?”
    Me: Silence. There was nothing I could say, for I knew then it was over. The fight was lost.
    I had always believed my man was a healer. He even had a cross in the palm of his right hand – according to some beliefs, a sure sign. In actuality, he was a true enigma. Given to temper tantrums, destructive behavior and in possession of a perpetually annoyed resting face (unless he was laughing raucously about something), he was also gentle, loving, and he cared to distraction for those he loved – albeit he chose carefully, for he always saw through the “fakers”.
    He could be Ares, the Greek God of War, one day and Archangel Michael the next – both personas possessing a strength that could knock anyone to their knees. This was why it was so hard for anyone to believe he had the capability to heal himself, let alone others. Healers are known to be gentle folk aren’t they? Yet, when his hands touched me, I felt better in an instant. I felt calm, contented and at peace. Many others felt it as well. He was either the life of the party, or he would start an argument between two people and walk away, satisfied he’d ruffled enough feathers.
    To this day, I still don’t quite understand why he would do that. Perhaps it was pent up energy he needed to unload for his own peace of mind. In my mind at the time, it was ornery and selfish. But I would never question it actively. I had tried years before and been shut down summarily. Explanations were never forthcoming. You either accepted it or you didn’t. If you didn’t, you’d be more miserable. Believe me. I tried. But I always knew there had to be a good reason.
    Given an inquiring mind since birth, I’d ask “why” continually. I always needed answers when I was confused. It was a conundrum why I chose him to be my life mate, when I knew I’d never be fully satisfied. But when I saw those hands come near me, all doubts, fears and questions would magically disappear into a puff of invisible smoke and I’d settle without question – until the next time. And so it went for close to forty years.
    He told me about his little soldiers one day out of the blue. They were inside of him, holding him together, and making sure no rogue cells were going awry in his body. They were the guardians of his health. When he needed them, he’d bring them forth and they went to work. It was not a mystery to me, this belief, and thank goodness I didn’t have to ask him any questions, as I had studied Bernie Siegel’s method of imagery therapy on children with cancer way before he’d mentioned it. It had been scientifically proven to work. But he had not picked this process up from a book. It was inborn from birth. He’d always thought this way and it worked.
    I experienced him in great physical pain from something or other that had happened to him constantly, and he carried on as if there was nothing wrong. His pain threshold was incredibly high. What would have made me pass out, was simply an annoying irritation to him. I watched time after time as he would fall through a crack in a rock, while climbing a jetty at the Cape, with one leg grazed from ankle to knee and turning blue as we watched the blood oozing out of a gash, and refusing help after I suggested we visit the local clinic. Or, driving us home from Boston, during a romantic weekend, because he’d rubbed his eye too strenuously and his contact lens had cracked and cut his eyeball. That time he knew he had to see his eye doctor – but it could always wait. He simply laid back in his seat next to me, with his eyes closed sleeping it off. One Thanksgiving, he was hanging out of the hospital third floor window waving at me down in the parking lot telling me to hurry up, as I arrived to pick him up after his hernia operation. We went to my mother’s. He ate a full meal. He didn’t want to go straight home. What ... and miss the turkey! There were so many other times I can’t count. He was truly accident prone, falling off ladders, etc.
    But, when he came to me in the kitchen one early evening and quietly said, “I think you’d better take me to the hospital” and walked away, I knew then I’d better move fast and that 911 was the only option. He had volunteered that time that his left arm was numb and he had pain in his chest, as he walked out the door and sat in my car. At my insistence, he did get out of the car and paced a bit, then sat on the porch seat awaiting the medics. He looked as if he had fully recovered by the time I arrived a half-hour later (the EMT told me not to follow them, so I made myself a cup of tea). I can’t believe I did that now thinking about it. He even said he might go home soon, until the doctor told us he had had a heart attack due to a blockage, but that luckily it was caught in time and he had no muscle damage. Instead of the recommended week in hospital with a transfer to another for evaluation for possible surgery after he’d stabilized, he discharged himself after passing a stress test and we went home three days later. He promised to follow up. Uh huh!
    Long story short, he spent another week in a cardiac care hospital two weeks later, after having a quadruple bypass operation and came home for the supposed two months of rehabilitation and no activity. He lasted through two rehab sessions only, went back to work, started driving way too early, and was dancing at our daughter’s wedding within six weeks. The scar on his chest was almost non-existent and the one on his leg where the graft was taken, had also faded to almost nothing.
    The downside of this gift was that he was fearful of others’ illnesses. I came to the conclusion after quite some time thinking about it, that he must have felt this innate responsibility to heal others as well as himself, but had no clue how to go about it. I believe he also feared that he might just fail and he would consider that to be disastrous. So, instead of actively exploring this phenomenon, he chose to keep it to himself. I don’t know who else knew about it because he never said, but I have a feeling that I might have been one of the very few, if any, who did. He would respond if I asked him to get rid of a headache, or calm me down if I felt anxious, but he would never volunteer, or let it be known he was available for such things.
    One day, I found him practicing Reiki symbols with his hands in the air. He had seen the illustrations I had left out on the counter. I was thrilled that he was taking an active interest because while he supported my pursuits, he would never usually join me in them. I asked him again if he would allow me to train him, but he wouldn’t. Perhaps, it was too much for him to consider. At that time, he was 63.
    In his seventies, he had three strokes. The first two were blockages that could have been taken care of with a daily dosage of aspirin that he’d ignored. The last stroke was from an arteriovenous malformation that had caused a weakness in the blood vessels in and around his brain that had been present since birth and only diagnosed after one had ruptured. The last one was the one that took him down, as it caused vascular dementia and he was not then in full control of his thinking processes and couldn’t hide it because he also lost some physical control on his right side. During the first two strokes, one would never have seen any evidence of them, as he had full use of his physical body and until just before the third stroke, no noticeable problem with his faculties. Although it has come to light since then, he must have been struggling hard to put his thoughts together and act his way through being competent. His outward demeanor could have fooled the best of us, but evidence of his trying to cover up financial discrepancies and actions taken that were not his usual modus operandi slowly became obvious until the light went on in my head. But, the fascinating thing is that the aspirin the doctor had ordered might have exacerbated the bleeding much sooner than it did, so I often wonder if he instinctively “knew” there was a reason for not taking it.
    Oh he was such an accomplished actor, he fooled even me. That is not saying a bad thing. It is more than a commendation to him that he tried so hard to keep going, without having to burden me, which I believe was his true motive. It must have exhausted him to the point of no return. And, for that, I feel very sad and truly grateful.
    So that when he caught me unaware one day as I lay by his side, he turned to look me in the eyes and said, “Shall I go?” I clenched up so badly, I almost had a stroke myself. It was so honest a question. Such a deeply terrifying thing for him to say. I still am not sure if it was on the spur of the moment, or that he’d been thinking about it for weeks. It mystifies me because he was not with us for much of that time. There would be moments of clarity that came out of the blue that delighted me and gave me such joy. Then he’d be gone again. It was such a seesaw of joy and then crashing disappointment.
    Yet, this time, I knew he needed an answer. He was asking for my permission to leave. And I didn’t want to give him an answer. What a travesty after all this time. My turn not to answer. But I had no choice. So I replied: “Yes. I don’t want you to go through this anymore. I don’t want to see you suffer anymore.” It was all I could say. It wasn’t as much as I wanted to say, but I knew he just needed a yes. Then he said, “You won’t know what to do without me,” and he closed his eyes. He knew he had just landed the last blow he could. But, I almost laughed out loud. I got it. So I answered truthfully, “I know. But I will try my hardest. I will find a way.” To this day, I’m not really confident I’ve kept that promise. But I remember the moment exquisitely and will never forget to the end of my days.
    He was 80, and left within two weeks after that. His little soldiers had died previously one by one, and he took them with him on his new journey to be revived in a brand new land somewhere far away.

 

     Bernie S. Siegel, MD (Author) Love, Medicine and Miracles, Jan 1, 1988, http://berniesiegelmd.com/

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