by Patrick Gray
“We’re actually doing this!” Justin says.
“I know. It’s kind of hard to believe.”
He pauses for a second, then asks, “How are you feeling? Scared? Worried?”
“Actually, I’m not sure what I’m feeling.”
After I put Justin’s headphones over his ears and help him find a movie to watch, I turn to the screen on the seatback in front of me. I’m scrolling through the many options, but the titles don’t even register. My mind is still in the Boise airport.
| | |
The first time I ever laid eyes on Donna was my very first day at Northwest Nazarene College. She was playing a game as a part of freshman orientation, and when we made eye contact, she smiled so big, the corners of her eyes curled up. It was the first time I had ever seen someone’s eyes smile.
A few days later, I asked her out.
Much of our first date was spent sitting on a bench in front of the campus library.
“So what are you planning to study?” I asked.
“I’m going to be a teacher.”
“Really,” I said, inching a little closer to her. “Both my parents are teachers. What makes you want to do that?”
She shook her head and said, “I don’t know. I’ve just always known it’s what I’m supposed to do. How about you?”
“I’m looking at a degree in biology, but I really don’t know yet.”
We continued to talk for hours, and when I walked her back to her dorm, I reached for her hand just as she reached for mine. When I kissed her good night, I opened my eyes to find her looking right at me, her eyes smiling the same way they had a few days before. I fell fast. And hard.
Donna and I dated throughout college, and our courtship led to the obvious question. I had it planned out perfectly. After a day spent hiking in the Wallowa Mountains, we were headed back down the trail. I knelt down on one knee in the middle of a small footbridge. The gaps in the boards were an inch wide, and I could see the rushing water of the river below. As I proposed, all I could think was: Don’t drop the ring! Don’t drop the ring!
Thankfully, I didn’t, and she said yes!
The wedding was set for June 28, 1997. Naturally, Justin was my best man.
Surrounded by family and friends, we married, and I remember feeling overjoyed while also thinking, Don’t screw this up! After honeymooning on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Donna and I settled in the Seattle area to begin our life together. When my biology degree proved less than marketable, we moved to Vancouver, Washington, and I went to work loading freight onto trucks while Donna looked for a job that would utilize her degree in elementary education.
Donna subbed for a year before I decided it was time for me to return to college. We moved back to Idaho, and I enrolled at Northwest Nazarene again to pursue a degree in secondary education while Donna found a teaching job. After graduating with a second bachelor’s degree, I taught high school for a few years, but it wasn’t a good fit. So I went back to school for a third round, this time to get a nursing degree.
After graduating, I worked at the bedside for several years, the majority of which were spent in orthopedics. Eventually, I was asked to apply for a position at an area hospital to manage their spine program. Always up for a challenge, I applied, got the job, and began navigating the task of keeping both the hospital and the surgeons I worked for happy. I tracked patient outcomes, dealt with physician and patient complaints, researched best practices, developed financial projections for new clinics, and expanded the program.
Four years, two promotions, and countless seventy-hour weeks later, I’m overworked, overstressed, disengaged from my wife and kids, and now I’m flying across the ocean and leaving them all for six weeks.
What am I doing?
| | |
After three more movies, a couple of meals, and hours of music, I feel my eyelids finally begin to droop—just as the wheels touch the runway in Paris.
Our film crew—Terry from emota, and Mike, who joined the ranks two weeks ago—are on the same flight. Once we’re all off the plane, the four of us make our way to the railway station to catch a train to the city of Bayonne, in the southwest corner of France. There we’ll spend a few days resting and acclimating to a new schedule before we begin our pilgrimage.
Once our tickets are squared away, we work with the information desk to ensure that a lift or ramp is available so Justin can get on the train. After multiple assurances that everything has been taken care of, we sit and wait. The train platforms are one level below us, so we find a bench where I can sit next to Justin and rest.
As the time nears for our train to arrive, we hustle to the elevator with one backpack on Justin’s chair and mine on my back. The elevator takes forever to descend to the platform level, and when the bell finally dings to announce our arrival, our train is already in the station.
“Where’s the ramp?” I ask, searching the area.
“I don’t know,” says Justin. “There’s no lift, either.”
With less than a minute until departure, Terry and Mike load their gear onto the train and board while I frantically look for someone to help us.
Seconds later, the doors close and the train pulls away, taking Mike and Terry with it. Standing on the platform, all I can do is wave good-bye.
“Well, that sucks,” I exclaim, shaking my head and laughing.
Justin just smiles and says, “Let’s head back upstairs. See if we can figure something out.”
Back at the information desk, we explain our plight, and one of the clerks takes it upon herself to become our personal advocate. She transfers our tickets to the next—and last—train to Bayonne and assures us that she will personally make all of the necessary arrangements for accessibility. Once again, we sit and wait. When we ride the painfully slow elevator back down to the platform, the help we need is available. Minutes later, we are on the train to Bayonne.
Our cabin is surprisingly empty. With brakes locked and wheelchair secured, I plop onto a seat across from Justin as he leans back in his wheelchair.
“How long till we get to Bayonne?” Justin asks, stifling a yawn.
“About six hours.”
“Well, it’s definitely been an interesting first day,” he jokes.
I have to admit, the whole situation seems surreal—just the two of us in a foreign country with only a wheelchair and two backpacks. Normally, Justin travels with a bedside commode, a shower chair, and a number of other medical supplies, but given that we have to carry everything with us on the Camino, we decided to do it bare bones, so we’ve brought only the essentials. Together, our backpacks weigh about thirty pounds. Each one contains a sleeping bag, three pairs of antimicrobial underwear, three pairs of socks, one pair of shorts, one pair of pants that convert into shorts, two T-shirts, two long-sleeve shirts, a jacket, a stocking cap, and a rain parka. We also have flip-flops, the shoes on our feet, our guidebook, headlamps, a small tool kit for the wheelchair, insulated chaps for Justin’s legs, and a collapsible urinal.
Shortly after making the decision to scale back on our equipment, we had notified Chris and Terry on a video call to emota. They were excited at the prospect of a more challenging journey, but they also told us that funding for the documentary was looking grim. Well short of our financial target, Terry and Chris asked if we could delay the journey for a year.
“No!” I said, shaking my head emphatically. “We have no guarantee how much time Justin has. We’re going this year, with or without a film crew.”
After the call ended, I looked at Justin and said, “I hope I didn’t speak out of turn there.”
“You didn’t,” he assured me.
“How much time do you think you have?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.
Justin just sighed and said, “I have no idea. But I don’t see this happening if I get any worse . . . and I am going to get worse. It’s just a question of when.”
| | |
Mortality has a
way of changing your perspective. That’s something we both came to grips with well before Justin’s health started to decline.
When we were in grade school, my mom became ill during a camping trip. At first, the illness presented much like a stomach bug—nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and extreme fatigue. But one night something changed, and my dad rushed her to the hospital. The doctors diagnosed her with toxic shock syndrome—a severe bacterial infection that had invaded her body and quickly escalated to a life-threatening level. They told my father that if he had waited much longer to take her to the hospital, she would have died that night in bed.
I’ll never forget seeing her in the hospital bed with an IV in each arm, looking so drawn and fragile. The doctors were so concerned about her dehydration that the IV fluids flowed more than they dripped. Mom spent three days in the ICU and eight more in the medical unit before she was finally able to come home.
For years afterward, I was frightened by how close my mother had come to death, to the point where my fear of losing her bordered on paranoia. I remember one day I came home from school, and our car was in the driveway, but there was no one in the house. I became hysterical before finding her in the backyard pulling weeds.
With time, though, my fear helped shape a new perspective. Almost losing my mom taught me that life is short and time is precious. We need to make the most of what we have.
A few years later, Justin’s mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Fortunately, chemotherapy and a mastectomy saved her life, but like me, Justin quickly learned not to take a single moment for granted.
After watching our mothers face death, and now seeing my best friend doing the same, I’ve begun to wonder: What if I died right now? Would I wish I had lived my life differently, or would I be proud of where I am when my light burns out?
| | |
As midnight draws near and the train finally approaches Bayonne, Justin and I are on the verge of delirium. We haven’t slept for thirty-five hours.
We find Terry and Mike waiting for us at the station, and together we stagger a mile through the darkened streets to our hotel. I’m beyond exhausted, and Justin is desperate for any semblance of a bed. After checking in, we make our way to the elevator that will take us up to the fourth floor, only to discover that it is just three feet wide by three feet deep.
After transferring Justin onto a bench in the hotel lobby, I try to break down the chair to make it fit, but it quickly becomes clear that there is no way we are going to get it into the elevator.
Spent and defeated, I sit down next to Justin. Just across from us, the girl at the counter, who has been watching the drama unfold, begins to apologize about the situation. I’m so tired, I can barely follow her French.
As she’s talking, Justin looks past her and sees an office chair on wheels. “Can we use your office chair?” he asks.
“Oui!” she says graciously.
I retrieve the makeshift wheelchair and position it beside the bench where Justin is sitting. I can see the exhaustion in his eyes, and I’m running on empty myself.
With shoulders slouched and moving almost in slow motion, I find the strength to pick up Justin and set him down on the office chair. We lock his off-road wheelchair in a room on the main floor and get into the elevator—one of those old ones with a gate you close after entering. Because Justin can’t use his hands, I have to ride with him. Nine square feet doesn’t leave much room for two full-grown men, two backpacks, and an office chair. As I back Justin into the elevator and squeeze in next to him, I realize that his face is right at my belt level. After thirty-six sleepless hours on the road, neither of us is the epitome of great personal hygiene, but he definitely drew the short straw.
“Dude, you stink!” he says, crinkling his nose.
“Yeah, I know,” I concede. “I can smell me too.”
After what feels like an eternity, the elevator squeaks and grinds its way to the fourth floor, and we get out. As I pull Justin out into the hall, the chair wheels catch on the thick carpet, which is buckled from years of use. As the chair spins, Justin starts to teeter, and I have to grab his shoulders to keep him from falling onto the floor.
Naturally, our room is the next-to-last room down the hall and around the corner from the elevator. Slowly and carefully, I push and pull the office chair down the hall. At times, I’m facing Justin and can’t see where we’re going, so he has to look back over his shoulder to give me directions. We finally make it to the corner and turn left. Thirty more feet and a few more close calls caused by wrinkles in the carpet, and we are finally at our door.
Bleary-eyed, I fumble for the key and open our room. As the hinges squeak and the door swings open, we are greeted by a six-inch step immediately inside the door.
“A step? Really?” Justin says.
We both hang our heads and begin to laugh—and the volume soon grows, fueled by a lack of sleep and a little anger.
“Shhhh, you’re going to wake the neighbors,” Justin says to me through tears.
“I’m going to wake the neighbors?”
Anxious to bring this day to a close, I grab the desk chair from the corner of the room and set it next to the step. I then back Justin into the entryway until he is as close as possible to the step, and for the twelfth time since we left Boise, I transfer him from one chair to another. As I drag the desk chair over to the edge of the bed, the legs catch against the carpet.
“Okay, end of the line,” I say. Reaching over Justin, I pull back the covers and then lift him into bed.
“Good night, Skeez.”
“Good night, Paddy.”
My mind and body are beyond exhaustion. I have never transferred Justin this much in such a short period of time. My shoulders and back throb with a deep aching pain, and my head feels like it weighs a hundred pounds. After calling my wife to let her know we made it, all I want to do is sleep. But my soul feels different. Sitting on the edge of the bed listening to Justin’s deep, slow breathing, I can’t help but appreciate his willingness to be here, his desire to take life by the horns and truly live.
Lying in bed, eyes staring toward a ceiling hidden by darkness, I am amazed how Justin faces life lived in a wheelchair. In spite of having more physical challenges than anyone I know, he has lived more than most. Nothing seems to hold him back.
So what’s holding me back? What’s keeping me from living life the same way?
7I WONDER IF . . .
— PATRICK —
ON JUNE 2, our final morning in Bayonne, we hear that a storm has settled over the Pyrenees Mountains and it has been raining there for the past few days. At the railway station, the woman at the ticket counter tells us that the train from Bayonne to our starting point in St. Jean Pied de Port has been shut down due to a mudslide that washed out the tracks. Either we find an alternate means of transportation for the thirty-five-mile trip, or we’re not getting there today.
A number of buses are headed that way, but none with a lift to get Justin and his chair aboard. Already we’re finding that accessibility in Europe leaves much to be desired. Terry and Mike go on ahead while we attempt to hire an accessible vehicle, but the language barrier makes communication difficult. My French is pathetic at best, and Justin’s Spanish is of no use here. After much discussion with the folks at the train station, we are mildly certain that a taxi is on the way.
We wait for an hour, and when our ride finally arrives, it is the smallest “accessible” vehicle I have ever seen—sort of a hunchbacked version of a Mini Cooper. And when the driver steps out from the car, the picture is complete. He has the wild hair of a mad professor, with clothes that are disheveled and stained, but he is all joy and smiles. While he lowers the ramp on the back of the car, he assures us that Justin and the chair will fit just fine, as long as Justin leans to one side and tilts his head. Even so, the fit is incredibly tight, and I have to climb into the car and reach over the backseat to guide the chair in. With the footrest pushed all the
way in, Justin and his wheelchair are still about two inches from fitting.
With one final heave, the Frenchman shoves Justin further into the car while at the same time the loudest explosion of gas that Justin and I have ever heard escapes the cabdriver’s body.
We all begin to laugh, and he says with a thick French accent, “Oh, I made an unfortunate sound!”
Pleased with his joke, he flashes us two thumbs up, slides behind the wheel, and starts the engine. Finally, we’re on our way to St. Jean to meet up with Ted and the film crew, with “Lovesong,” by The Cure, blaring from the speakers.
| | |
— JUSTIN —
After an hour-long ride wedged in the back of the taxi, I have a pretty good idea of what it’s like to be a sardine. And though I can’t stand up and stretch when we reach our destination, it feels good to at least be able to shift my position and begin to work out the stiffness in my neck.
At the hotel, the elevator is too small again, so we borrow a standard wheelchair and leave mine locked in a downstairs closet. As we settle into our tiny room, we’re joined by Terry and Mike—and now Ted, who recently arrived in town. With two twin beds and five people crowding in, there’s little room to spare, so the four other guys sit down on the beds and I’m in the borrowed wheelchair just inside the door. I miss the size and accessibility of American hotel rooms.
Terry and Mike have decided that a two-man crew is not enough for the challenges of filming our journey. Yesterday, Mike made a few calls, and now he tells us that two new members of the team are on their way to St. Jean.
This represents a real commitment on the part of emota, who had told us shortly before we left the States that they would foot the bill for filming our journey, even though funds were tight. But Terry and Chris hadn’t planned on adding people to the crew.
A few minutes later, we hear a knock on the door. When Patrick opens it, a tall, lean young man with long brown hair, bright blue eyes, and a perfect smile—the spitting image of Zac Efron—is standing there.
