Broken Mary by Kevin Matthews

Author:Kevin Matthews [Matthews, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2016-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Dave Mason

In addition to fatigue, my balance and walking became a challenge. I was introducing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer Dave Mason one evening when I found it nearly impossible to climb the stage stairs. Walking through the instruments was the biggest challenge, because I could easily have fallen into Dave’s guitar or onto the drum rig. He just looked at me with an “Are you okay?” look. I felt the heat of the stage lights, and wondered for a minute who I was introducing. I finally brought out this musical legend, and my exit was just as slow as my entrance. No longer was I the star. This new sidekick, multiple sclerosis, was stealing my act.

The radio program limped along with my leg; my comedic timing slowed like a rusted clock. My treatment was a new routine that would continue for life, back and forth to Chicago, injecting myself with a needle every day. The injection sites—my butt, my stomach, under my arms, my legs—became sore and bruised. I was depressed and hollow-eyed, and death was a way out. My faith in Jesus is what kept me alive, and my wife and children. Suicide is not a solution. I kept thinking of my Navy SEAL friends: “Ring the bell. Pain is temporary; quitting is forever.”

I was constantly talking to God, to Jesus: “What do I do with this, Jesus? What now?” Since the age of four I’d been talking to him, lying in my bed, hearing the yelling downstairs; now decades later, I found myself comforted by God in silence. I felt the presences of peace and patience and remembered what my Iroquois grandfather had said: “Death is just a word, brother. Float like a feather. Try and out-give God, Kevin, every day. Try and out-give God.” This amazing man, Sana, my grandpa. His presence was all around me. I could smell him in the room, the smell of sage, just for a moment, as a gentle reminder that there is no end. I had been fortunate to have met many stewards of the earth, simple, loving, peaceful elders, constant resources of hope and conduits to God.

And God and the elements had prepared me for this. I thought back to the previous Good Friday, before MS. I had sat alone at St. Anthony’s, not praying, but listening intently to the sounds around me: thunder, the rain on the church roof, my breathing, the rhythm of my heart. I had felt as if I were back in my tree stand in the woods, no humans around, no sounds of humanity, just natural noises. I had known then, without knowing anything specific, that something was coming.

What was coming was a storm, just like the one pounding the church: black clouds, thousands of raindrops slamming into the metal roof. A friend’s face had come to me, eyes closed, in church, listening. Then his personal pain had become more vivid. It was impacting me and those who knew him and lived with him.

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