This morning I was standing in a check out line at the grocery with a basket full of food. The lines were long; the store was busy. The woman checking out her groceries at the head of the line had an enormous order. It was going to be a while.
The man in line ahead of me seemd to be about sixty years old. He was leaning on his cart, waiting his turn.
I was fascinated with the contents of his cart - six five-pound bags of sugar, a packet of beef jerky, a case
of beer, and four baby gates.
The wait was going to be a long one, so I started a conversation with him, commenting that the sugar was
obviously for his wife, the beer and jerky for him, and the gates for his grandbabies.
He seemed to be grateful for my conversation, and said the gates were either for the great-grandbaby or the
dog. Her said one of his wife's expensive knickknacks had been broken this morning, and they did not know if the baby hanging onto the coffee table or if the dog was the culprit.
He went on to talk about his eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. He was obviously very proud of>
his family, very devoted to them. He mentioned that now that he was disabled and could no longer work, he and his wife were spending more time with the grandchildren.
The talk turned back to the broken knicknack. It was very expensive, a memento of time he had spent in
Kuwait. He described an expensive hotel in Kuwait that had a bowling alley in it. The knicknack had come from the gift shop in that bowling alley - a gift to his wife, so very far away in the States.
What had taken him so far away from his family and wife?
It was after the first Gulf War. He'd been hired for very good money to work with a company doing support for the men fighting the oil well fires after the war.
I was riveted by his descriptions of the horror of those fires. I meekly mentioned that they had been so huge that they could be seen from the space shuttle.
He said "They were living hell." He said that at noon, the sky was so black that it seemed like midnight.
We moved up in the line. He leaned on his cart, pushing it forward. He said, "I'm sick from working on the fires. I can't stand very long. I have to use this cart like a walker. My walker is in the car. I have pain all the time.
"See the sweat on my face? I break out in a cold sweat all the time.
"Most of my friends who were there with me are dead now. A lot of them died before they were fifty. They died of heart attacks, cancer, blood problems.
"I'm sick now. I have had eight heart attacks in the last six years. I have nine stents in my heart.
"It went to my arteries. It hits one artery at a time, not all at once, so I can't have a bypass.
"My old daddy always said that life's a bitch and then you die."
He started to laugh.
"If it wasn't for my wife and kids I would just end it. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them. So I just take it one day at a time.
"It wasn't worth it."
His turn came up, and he turned his attention to paying the check out clerk. He leaned on his cart full of sugar and beer, now paid for, turned his back, and walked slowly away, leaning on his cart.
I walked after him, tapped him on the back, and said "Goodbye."
He flashed a beautiful smile at me and said "Bye, babe."