"I fell Saturday at dialysis,” Mr. Herbold looks up at me, his hat brim hides a bruised forehead.
“I knew better, I was lightheaded and thought I could make it to the bathroom by myself...I didn’t use my walker or a cane.” He pets his dog Snowball that sits on his lap.
“Let’s stay with the rolling walker for awhile,” I say as I position it in front of him. As if on cue Snowball anchors herself on Mr. Herbold’s lap.
“Come on now, Snowball,” Mr. Herbold chuckles, “get down now.” Snowball braces even firmer as if she senses his recent fall, wanting to protect him. After a few minutes of attempting to place Snowball on the ground we are successful.
Mr. Herbold is 88 and a war veteran. He lost his wife a year ago. Now, he is getting dialysis Tues, Thurs, and Saturday. He tells me every time I come to see him how it wears him out. He still goes through the entire exercise regimen. He is a fighter inside, yet gentle and loving. He is temporarily living with his niece and nephew. He has no children, and Jay and Carol are considered his kids.
We finish up the exercises in bed and head for the kitchen for standing exercise. We pause for a rest at the kitchen table. Kitchen tables are where I get the best stories from people. He proceeds to share with me that perhaps his kidneys are failing because of food poisoning he got as a patient in the hospital five years ago. He pushes the published article from the Enquirer. The headline reads FOOD POISONING MAY CAUSE FUTRE PROBLEMS. Says he didn’t sue.
He talks about Reba McIntyre and wants me to read the latest article about her. “She looks great,” he says pointing to her with youthful eyes. I skim the article, words stick out concerning a problem my daughter has had recently about her teenage experiments. The underlying message I get is that Reba struggles sometimes too. What she does for her teenage son is surrounds him with the light of God knowing that he has his own journey to live.
Mr.Herbold-still procrastinating on doing any more activity-asks if I have time. He wants to tell me another story. I nod. He begins it with when he was stationed in the army. They let him take leave to go home to his ailing mother. At the train station he pays for his ticket by unfolding the very tiny square of a twenty-dollar bill. He saved for such emergencies. He makes it home to be with his comatose mother. She passes away on Feb 13th. He was unable to receive any communication from her that she even knew he had come home.
Army wastes no time in wanting him back on duty. Mr. Herbold is waiting at the train station drinking a cup of coffee, grieving his mother’s death, wondering what it’s all about. He notices what he thinks is a folded up twenty-dollar bill on the ground amidst small garbage droppings, it looks just like the one he had. He picks it up and sure enough it is a twenty-dollar bill. He slowly unfolds it, and surprised when it reveals on the border, handwritten, the unmistaken number thirteen. Mr. Herbold first checked with the desk to see if anyone had lost any money. When the lady assured him no one had reported such a loss he smiled, placed the twenty-dollar bill in his wallet. Clearly this was a metaphysical message from his mother that she was okay and a gift that somehow she did know he had been at her bedside. |