I saw a dead man today. He was breathing and walking and otherwise alive...but he won't be for long.
I was delivering to a hospital, standing at the front desk, waiting for people to come down and pick up their food when a man that seemed like he might be homeless came up and mentioned to the receptionist that he had "what they call" cancer. "Excuse me?" the receptionist replied. "From the second-hand smoke, cancer. I was wondering if I could get some of that radiation therapy?"
It was sad.
The fact that he was approaching the information lady at the hospital and the way he stated his concerns about something like that told me that his faculties weren't all there. And the way he was dressed -- too many layers of dirty clothes on a relatively warm day -- brought me to the conclusion that he was probably homeless. At the very least he was extremely poor. I'm sure he doesn't have any sort of health insurance.
He will be dead in a year or two.
That is all I could think about while I'm standing there, watching him and wondering what must be going through his mind right now. He has to know to that there is little hope for him, that he is doomed. He wouldn't be walking into a hospital asking for treatment if he didn't. And there's nothing that anyone is going to be willing to do for him...cancer treatment is just too expensive to be given out for free. They may ease his suffering for free when it has become terminal, causing him pain, but not now, not there...............
Fuck. Everytime that I think life is being unfair to me, I think of people like that man and how much he must be dealing with right now. I have reasonable assurance that I'll be alive in five or ten years yet, he has reasonable assurance that he will be dead in a year or two. He must know that there is hope for him out there somewhere, but whether he knows it's more than likely out of his reach I don't know. Either way, whether he knows it or not, he will spend the last of his days searching out his salvation and will probably never succeed.
Fuck me for even thinking that my life has ever approached that sort of unfairness.
I was delivering to a hospital, standing at the front desk, waiting for people to come down and pick up their food when a man that seemed like he might be homeless came up and mentioned to the receptionist that he had "what they call" cancer. "Excuse me?" the receptionist replied. "From the second-hand smoke, cancer. I was wondering if I could get some of that radiation therapy?"
It was sad.
The fact that he was approaching the information lady at the hospital and the way he stated his concerns about something like that told me that his faculties weren't all there. And the way he was dressed -- too many layers of dirty clothes on a relatively warm day -- brought me to the conclusion that he was probably homeless. At the very least he was extremely poor. I'm sure he doesn't have any sort of health insurance.
He will be dead in a year or two.
That is all I could think about while I'm standing there, watching him and wondering what must be going through his mind right now. He has to know to that there is little hope for him, that he is doomed. He wouldn't be walking into a hospital asking for treatment if he didn't. And there's nothing that anyone is going to be willing to do for him...cancer treatment is just too expensive to be given out for free. They may ease his suffering for free when it has become terminal, causing him pain, but not now, not there...............
Fuck. Everytime that I think life is being unfair to me, I think of people like that man and how much he must be dealing with right now. I have reasonable assurance that I'll be alive in five or ten years yet, he has reasonable assurance that he will be dead in a year or two. He must know that there is hope for him out there somewhere, but whether he knows it's more than likely out of his reach I don't know. Either way, whether he knows it or not, he will spend the last of his days searching out his salvation and will probably never succeed.
Fuck me for even thinking that my life has ever approached that sort of unfairness.
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