Shouldn't…but Do

Phil lives a few hours south of me.  We have never met, but I talk to him each year about this time.

Phil sells candle making supplies, and my oldest makes beeswax candles.  Each year I buy another pound or two of beeswax beads from Phil.  Phil  sounds as honest as the day is long,  lively in talking about his work.   People interest me and I tend to like that type.  Because I  make estimations, I would guess Phil is a few years older than me.

This year Phil took a little longer getting to the phone.  He apologized for the delay, he was navigating by wheelchair now, and not quite used it.

Phil’s life changed on October 11 at 9:55 AM.  Texting as she drove, a young woman ran her vehicle into the car Phil was driving.  The resulting collision almost entirely crushed the right side of his body – arm, hip, leg, knee – obliterated.

Only recently released from a rehabilitative facility, Phil is home after two months away.  Grateful to be alive, happy to be with his family for the holiday, and impressed by medical technology  striving to regrow his knee with his own bone marrow, rather than amputate his entire leg,  Phil thinks he may walk again in a couple of years.

Phil’s attitude is decidedly unlike most who encounter catastrophe.  We talked a piece about how  no one truly walks on stable ground, we all just like to think that way, to avoid understanding how tenuous, how fragile and changeable life really is. I commented Phil seemed to have new eyes, for seeing how things are, he wondered how I knew.

Phil says he does not like to talk much about his accident, doesn’t see any reason to bring his troubles to other people.  His life has changed and he accepts the turn.  I told him I thought him inspiring, he said I made his day.

Small towns, big thoughts.  New eyes, so costly, see the world how it is.  Priceless.