Life is Short

Many years ago, I was at work on what seemed to be a normal night behind the bar at The Inn at Turner's Mill. Given the events that would unfold that night, I can't recall if we were busy. I think it was just your average week night - and those can be very good nights sometimes. On this particular evening, it wasn't about sales or the money I'd make. Something very important - and sad, happened on that night.

I don't even remember the time, but I'd have to guess that it was around 7:30-8:00 in the evening. A gentleman came up to me and very calmly said words that I can still hear in this guy's voice to this day - and it's been over 23 years.

"I need you to call 911 right away - there's a gentleman having a heart attack at our table."

I probably took 5 steps towards the phone at the end of the bar. To this day I remember it feeling like those 5 steps took forever. 911 on a push button phone also seemed to take forever. I don't remember how many times the number rang, but it felt like too many. One seemed like too many. Time was suddenly being measured in split seconds, the tiniest fractions of time that I was completely aware of and needing to stretch them out into groups of minutes, long enough for this man to live. The whole series of events became a series of hand offs, with each person playing an important role, handing off to the next person, whose task was immediately more important than the one that came before it - because each time a new person had the next logical step in the sequence, they would now be acting in the only moment any of us had - the one we were currently in. The NOW.

Those fractions of seconds did seem to stretch, but not in the ways I wanted them to. Everything I did from my first step towards the phone felt like it was taking way too long, this was an emergency. It was life or death. When the dispatcher did pick up, I calmly told her where I was calling from and that it was an emergency, I had a gentleman having a heart attack in the middle of our dining room.

I know I spoke quickly and as calmly as I could, I do remember that. Then I remember the dispatcher asking what felt like way too many questions. "How old would you estimate the gentleman to be? Is he breathing? Does he appear discolored? Is he conscious?" - I don't remember specific questions, I just remember that I kept saying, "I don't know - he's halfway across the room from me and he's surrounded by people! Just get here!"

Hudson is a small, very New England like, affluent community. The restaurant was a little more than a small city block away from the police department. To this day it still feels like I was on the phone forever - but I wasn't. Nothing is forever, and I was probably on the phone for all of two minutes if I had to guess. I've had conversations with family & friends on the phone that lasted hours and flew by like seconds. When you realize that every split second counts, none of them are long enough.

The paramedics arrived quickly. Across the room I couldn't see much of what was going on. They did everything to try and bring this gentleman back, but he was gone. I have no idea how much time elapsed from the moment when I was told to call 911 and the time our guest passed away - right there in the dining room I made my living in. There were a handful of us working in the Tavern that night and all of us were now just numb. We stood there in shock trying to put ourselves back together after watching the paramedics cover a man up and take him out the front door.

None of us were the same after what had just happened in front of us. I knew that I acted quickly and calmly. But I still wondered. I knew that the dispatcher did her job perfectly. I still wondered. I knew I answered her questions as well as anyone standing in my vantage point could have. I wondered. I knew the paramedics got there quick. Wondered.

All of us in the room that night didn't have to say it, but we all knew the exact same thing. In that room that night, someone's earthly journey stopped. None of us were ready to think about something like that, even with all of us being adults. None of us knew the man - hell I didn't even see his face. Somehow we all decided to go out for a drink and just be there for one another.

The server who was waiting on the party of businessmen the deceased man was having dinner with, said that the guy had actually said moments earlier to his associates, that he'd had a very good life and he'd have no regrets if he were to die that very night. I think we all thought the guy would be okay, the paramedics would do their job and the guy would live, but that was not to be. Everyone did do their job perfectly that night - the dispatcher, the paramedics, the gentleman who came up to my bar and asked me to call 911 and me, in calling and giving the dispatcher the run down on the emergency we were in the midst of. I can't speak for anyone else, but I still wondered. I doubt that I was the only one who wondered if anything they'd noticed or done could've changed the unfortunate outcome of that evening.

We talked a bit at Kepner's after our shift. None of us were laughing nor were we in the mood to. We were barely in the mood for a cocktail, but we all just knew that we needed each other that night. And we were there for one another.

My point in sharing this story isn't to look back on a very unpleasant memory. My point is that all of us went to work that night, thinking it was just another night at work. The business party at the table that night probably thought this would be just another business dinner after a day's work. Not one of us gave any thought to the very real possibility that our night would take a turn like this one did. But it did. In the short span of a few minutes, minutes that seemed to take way too long to pass so that we could collectively get back to saving a man's life.

In that short span of minutes, all made up of seconds and split seconds, a life came to an end right before our eyes. It didn't take long at all - it just felt like it did when it was happening. And then he was gone. Nothing was certain up to that point until the moment this gentleman passed away. The rest of us stood there putting ourselves back together. Back to our uncertain lives. Did this gentleman have a family? Was he happy? Was he sick? Was he a nice guy to work with or for? Was he funny?
These were things that none of us knew - maybe the people he was having dinner with knew. But none of us in the room that night knew what was going to happen in the blink of an eye. And for all any of us knew that night, it could happen any time. Because it could. And here's the important thing:
It CAN. Seconds from now. Minutes. Hours from now. Days. Weeks from now, months. If we're lucky years - years that fly by, made up of the segments of time that seem longer the smaller they are. In every split second that leads up to being a year - or years, there are moments we're in. Right up to the time it's someone's last moment. It's the one we're in that is the only one we know we have. And that moment is the one we can't get back when the day comes that there won't be another. For the sake of those you love and yourself, live present in that moment, and in the groups of those moments that all of us take for granted - much more than any of us should.

In a short few minutes, a life came to an end. I have no idea how old the gentleman was. It didn't matter. Had he been 100, a life had come to an end. It had taken him untold years to get to this point. Longer than it had taken some people, and in less time than it had taken others. But now we sat there and all of us collectively realizing that life is too short. No matter how many things seem to take forever, the fact is, life is much too short.

So my message here is not to cast a sad shadow over anyone's day while they read this, but rather to inspire anyone who might do so to realize just how short this life can be - and to cover you with the hope that if you have people in your life that you love and appreciate, TELL THEM. Tell them now. Tell them often, and then tell them AGAIN, and mean it - don't just say it. Hug them, thank them for whatever they have meant to you on your own journey, but please, TELL THEM. Every one of us is but a phone call, a diagnosis, an accident or other tragedy away from a moment that can end one life and alter others forever. Speak. Act. Appreciate the people in your life that make a difference. Forgive. Love. Help. Laugh. Be thankful for any and every opportunity to take notice of people and make every effort to never let them wonder what they mean to you.

A few paragraphs back, I said we all needed one another that night, and we all knew that yet none of us had to say that. The fact of the matter is, we still all need one another and every one of us would do well to actually say that and act on it. Now, right now - don't ask for time when time doesn't belong to anyone to give, give of your time when you have the opportunity to do so, because none of us really know if we'll get the chance we'll wish we had when the opportunity isn't going to present itself again.

                                                 The trouble is, you think you have time.

                                                        

Peace, good people. Today.

CRO