NO GOLD FOR VICTORIES
THAT ARE GOOD AS GOLD
Journal of Healing – Aug. 18, 2004
By Mary Koch

"Hi!"

The tourist paused as he walked toward the shimmering, tree-lined lake. He was eager to enjoy the view but was interrupted by the friendly greeting: "Hi!"

The tourist turned momentarily toward the man who spoke. Smiling briefly, he responded with an automatic, "hi," and continued on his way.

The exchange lasted less than two seconds. If it registered at all with the tourist, he probably observed no more than a man sitting in a wheelchair, enjoying a cool spot by the lake, eating ice cream with a sixty-ish woman at his side.

The tourist could not realize he had witnessed a victory of Olympian proportions.

He had traveled to this jewel of a lake in the Okanogan Highlands along a bumpy, winding road. He could not know how rigorous the drive is for a passenger in a wheelchair with every bump telescoped through the chair’s metal frame. He was not aware that 10 years of healing had strengthened a body to cope with the sways of each turn, to reduce the nausea from motion.

How could anyone know that just getting there and being there by that lake was a victory?

* * *

SUCH A SIMPLE pleasure, eating ice cream on a warm summer afternoon.

Who could imagine that a few bites of ice cream were the reward for a decade of effort: The reward for conquering high-tech medical interventions like ventilators and a tracheotomy tube, for hundreds of hours of therapy, for being gagged by ice swabs deep in the throat, for tolerating electrical stimulation to sensitive facial nerves, for putting up with foul-tasting barium swallow tests and daring to keep trying despite choking and strangling over the tiniest amounts of food.

A bite of ice cream, a reward for daily prayer and endless determination.

And such an ordinary thing, saying "hi" to a passerby, connecting with another human traveler.

Who would guess the concentration it takes to make a stroke-damaged brain kick into action, to send myriad messages to all parts of the paralyzed body, to sense a person approaching, to form a word in the mind, to alert the lungs and diaphragm – breathe in then out with enough force to vibrate the vocal chords, to open the mouth and instruct the lips to shape the word: hah-EY-EE!

The tourist couldn’t have known that he was one of several people who had already walked past that afternoon, people who were yards away before the brain could process all those functions, people who never heard the "hi" as it floated across the empty path.

"You’re going to have to get the ‘hi’ out sooner if you want people to hear it," coached the sixty-ish woman.

* * *

THE NEXT passerby, the tourist, couldn’t hear the brain as it kicked furiously into gear, but he did hear the "hi," loud and clear and in the knick of time. "Hi," he answered and continued on his way.

He may have heard and wondered why the sixty-ish woman applauded and exclaimed, "Guh-reat!" Another victory.

The airwaves are filled with victories reported from the other side of the world, of gold and silver and bronze medals. Yet here, all around us, are champions whose personal victories are as good as gold. Better even.

The recovering addict who is sober one more day, the angry individual who discovers coping skills, the battered wife who dares to assert her independence, the shy student who volunteers an answer in class, the lonely soul who reaches out to another . . .