NAMASTE NOW! | LIFE LESSONS
My Son’s Priceless Gift of Compassion
The cold turned to fear as it poured
I’m certain my son was unaware that he’d given me such a priceless gift. The reward was almost overwhelming. My heart warmed over with gratitude. His selfless gesture helped to confirm that he was becoming a complete person, a good man. The way it came about was completely unexpected, which makes it all that more special.
It was nearing late afternoon yesterday, and I was looking forward to my daily walk. The sun was almost behind the distant volcanoes to the west and the shadows spread dark shrouds over the land. Some days I feel primed and pumped for walking, other days it is a chore that needs to get done. It really comes down to age. Seventy-three years old and the body simply doesn’t ‘spring back’ miraculously from life’s daily rigors. Walking is all about keeping the form functioning and healthy.
In the Valley of Panchoy, in Guatemala, thunder boomed loudly, resembling the sound of giant bowling balls colliding with the mountains of Antigua. After double knotting my walking shoes, I put on my ball cap and didn’t bother to put on my rain jacket.
I’ve been mostly lucky not to get rained on during the rainy season. It’s fun to tease my luck that way. ‘Will I get rained on?’ Not likely, despite the dark, rolling clouds overhead, so out I went. When I said goodbye to my wife, she immediately told me not to go because it was going to rain. I laughed and off I went.
The valley sits at five thousand feet of elevation. High enough to enjoy almost constant, cool air. This is why Antigua has so many people not originally from there—a mix of retired expats and youth, mostly from the US and other countries globally. The Guatemalan highlands in the dry season offer delicious, crystal clear skies and the most agreeable weather year round.
The rainy season is our snowy winter. The rain can pour down by the bucket loads, cobblestone streets become rivers and every drainage pipe overflows. It causes the valley to explode in natural colors from a rich, tropical variety of plant growth throughout. Bright purple and red bougainvillea, yellow peony-like flowers, and wall-covering beauties similar to abundantly blooming morning glories seem to cover the ancient, colonial town.
The highlands hold a mysterious chill, a seemingly sinister cold that creeps about the town swept down from the three massive volcanoes circling the valley. For those of us over sixty, setting out on a walk unprepared can turn into a problem. If one is not careful, the almost freezing wind upon a soaked shirt is scary. People have died of hypothermia in these mountains and valleys.
Just two years ago, twelve weekend climbers died from the cold. Volcano Acatenango, at a little over thirteen thousand feet, creates its own weather at its summit, and that day the cold caught the amateur climbers by surprise. They waited too long, overconfident, before running back down the mountain, which proved fatal.
Yesterday, as I left the house for my hour-long walk, the sprinkling was a little heavier than I liked. Now out of the gate and headed down the road, the jacket came to mind. Sloughing it off, I kept going.
Half an hour into my walk, the black clouds rolled in, cloaking the valley in a mystical fog and suddenly the rain fell cats and dogs. I’d taken perhaps ten steps, and it soaked me to the bone. My feet squished around in the water. Ten steps! It tells you just how fast it fell.
An old native man standing in the roofed gate section of the house he watched over waved. “Very good, very good,” he called out through the downpour. To some of these old indigenous guys, certain behaviors like walking drenched through a rainstorm, may be a sign of manhood. His comment gave me food for thought as I splashed along. Instead of being manly, maybe I just made a terrible mistake.
A creepy cold worked its way into my core. My oldest son, a highly experienced mountain climber, told me that’s how ‘it’ begins. Hypothermia. It starts slowly, yet clearly, and very present, and it sends unmistakable warnings. It’s there, and it’s affecting my breathing. Icey, probing fingers working deeper and deeper.
For the first time, I became a little concerned.
All my younger life, I’d braved the weather, well beyond what my friends would dare. The rain never bothered me. So now I silently patted myself on the back, ‘Yeah, man, you’ve got this, keep going, one foot after the other…’
There were moments I sensed, as though I’d reached a volcano’s summit, and a sense of pride flowed through me. ‘Hell yeah, I can do this...’ A victory of sorts.
Then it just got too damn cold. At seventy, I no longer have the strength and the stamina that I had as a nineteen-year-old. I felt my years.
‘Dammit, man, why didn’t I bring my jacket?!’
I heard a car behind me. I turned to see my twenty-one-year-old son driving the beat-up Toyota. He’d come to pick up his old man. He stopped and reached over to open the door for me. “Hi Pa, c’mon, I’ll give you a ride home.”
Plopping soaked onto the seat next to him, I thanked him and immediately went into a sulk.
“Hey Pa, what’s the matter? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, I couldn’t even walk in the damn rain. I used to do that stuff all the time. You should have seen how I’d go out into shoulder-deep snow in my T-shirt!” A deep, overwhelming sense of deflation was upon me. One that said, ‘You’re too old for that shit now, pal, you can’t do that anymore.’ I continued in my funk as my boy swung us around the last corner to the house.
The large gate opened slowly, and I realized something far more important, far more meaningful. My wonderful boy saw me as I was heading out the gate for my walk a half hour before. He had seen when the skies opened up. He decided on a hunch and a doubt to go get his old man.
A sense of gratitude swept over me then. A genuine feeling of victory was mine now. My son, in a moment of compassion and consideration, felt the genuine need to go get me. In a way, I was again a champion. Of course, the real champion was my boy. I reached over, patting him on his solid shoulder, thinking I used to be a little like him.
He said nothing about not walking out in the rain. He just said gently, “Please be careful, Pa.”
These last ten years, I have been prone to getting chills in bed if I don’t cover up. I no longer have that shield of invulnerability I had as a youth. The chills start and twist my body like a live-wired pretzel. I have to do jumping jacks and push-ups to warm up and settle down.
This afternoon, though, despite getting a good scare, I felt like something great happened. My son showed me he was becoming a man—a good man.
It was a priceless moment for both of us.
