“He runs out to the field. He sees the bales of wheat have been bound and are wrapped in tarpaulins.
“He races to the silo. The doors are latched, and the grain is dry.
“And then he understands. ‘He sleeps in a storm.’
“My friends, if we tend to the things that are important in life, if we are right with those we love and behave in line with our faith, our lives will not be cursed with the aching throb of unfulfilled business. Our words will always be sincere, our embraces will be tight. We will never wallow in the agony of ‘I could have, I should have.’ We can sleep in a storm.
“And when it’s time, our good-byes will be complete.”
Life of Henry
Henry Covington did not sleep that night.
But he did not die, either.
The drug dealers from whom he’d stolen somehow never found him; the cars that came down his street did not fire a bullet. He hid behind those trash cans, gripping his shotgun and reciting his question over and over.
“Will you save me, Jesus?”
He was following man’s sad tradition of running to God when all else fails. He had done it before, turned his face to the heavens, only to return to new trouble when the current trouble passed.
But this time, when the sun rose, Henry Covington slid the shotgun under his bed and lay down next to his wife and child.
It was Easter Sunday.
Henry thought about his life. He had stolen and lied and waved guns in people’s faces. He had blown all his money on drugs, and he had been so low at one point he had a small pebble of crack cocaine but nothing to smoke it in, so he scoured the streets until he found a cigarette butt. Anyone could have stepped on that cigarette butt. A dog could have urinated on it. It didn’t matter. He put it in his mouth. He had to have what he had to have.
Now, on Easter morning, he suddenly had to have something else. It was hard to explain. Even his wife didn’t understand it. An acquaintance came by with heroin. Henry’s eyes desired it. His body craved it. But if he took it, it would kill him. He knew it. He was certain. He had promised his life to God in the darkness behind those trash cans, and here, hours later, was his first test.
He told the man to go away.
Then Henry went into the bathroom, got on his knees, and began to pray. After he finished, he guzzled a bottle of NyQuil.
The next day, he guzzled another.
And the next day, he guzzled another-all in an attempt to numb himself through a self-imposed detox. It was three days before he could put a morsel of food in his mouth. Three days before he could even lift up out of bed.
Three days.
And then he opened his eyes.
SEPTEMBER
Happiness
The Reb opened his eyes.
He was in the hospital.
It was not the first time. Although he often hid his ailments from me, I learned that in recent months, staying upright had become a problem. He had slipped on the pavement and cut open his forehead. He had slipped in the house and banged his neck and cheek. Now he had fallen getting up from his chair and slammed his rib cage against a desk. It was either syncope, a temporary loss of consciousness, or small strokes, transient attacks that left him dizzy and disoriented.
Either way, it was not good.
Now I expected the worst. A hospital. The portal to the end. I had called and asked if it was all right to visit, and Sarah kindly said I could come.
I braced myself at the front entrance. I am haunted by hospital visits and their familiar, depressing cues. The antiseptic smell. The low drone of TV sets. The drawn curtains. The occasional moaning from another bed. I had been to too many hospitals for too many people.
For the first time in a while, I thought about our agreement.
Will you do my eulogy?
I entered the Reb’s room.
“Ah,” he smiled, looking up from the bed, “a visitor from afar…”
I stopped thinking about it.
We hugged-or, I should say, I hugged his shoulders and he touched my head-and we both agreed that this was a first, a hospital conversation. His robe fell open slightly and I caught a glance at his bare chest, soft, loose flesh with a few silver hairs. I felt a rush of shame and looked away.
A nurse breezed in.
“How are you doing today?” she asked.
“I’m dooooing,” the Reb lilted. “I’m dooooing…”
She laughed. “He sings all the time, this one.”
Yes, he does, I said.
It amazed me how consistently the Reb could summon his good nature. To sing to the nurses. To kid around with the physicians. The previous day, while waiting in a wheelchair in the hallway, he was asked by a hospital worker for a blessing. So the Reb put his hands on the man’s head and gave him one.
He refused to wallow in self-pity. In fact, the worse things got for him, the more intent he seemed on making sure no one around him was saddened by it.
As we sat in the room, a commercial for an antidepressant drug flashed across the TV screen. It showed people looking forlorn, alone on a bench or staring out a window.
“I keep feeling something bad is going to happen…,” the TV voice said.
Then, after showing the pill and some graphics, those same people appeared again, looking happier.
The Reb and I watched in silence. After it ended, he asked, “Do you think those pills work?”
Not like that, I said.
“No,” he agreed. “Not like that.”
Happiness in a tablet. This is our world. Prozac. Paxil. Xanax. Billions are spent to advertise such drugs. And billions more are spent purchasing them. You don’t even need a specific trauma; just “general depression” or “anxiety,” as if sadness were as treatable as the common cold.
I knew depression was real, and in many cases required medical attention. I also knew we overused the word. Much of what we called “depression” was really dissatisfaction, a result of setting a bar impossibly high or expecting treasures that we weren’t willing to work for. I knew people whose unbearable source of misery was their weight, their baldness, their lack of advancement in a workplace, or their inability to find the perfect mate, even if they themselves did not behave like one. To these people, unhappiness was a condition, an intolerable state of affairs. If pills could help, pills were taken.
But pills were not going to change the fundamental problem in the construction. Wanting what you can’t have. Looking for self-worth in the mirror. Layering work on top of work and still wondering why you weren’t satisfied- before working some more.
I knew. I had done all that. There was a stretch where I could not have worked more hours in the day without eliminating sleep altogether. I piled on accomplishments. I made money. I earned accolades. And the longer I went at it, the emptier I began to feel, like pumping air faster and faster into a torn tire.
