The Strongest Man I Know

Standing in the hospital lobby, waiting for the elevator to open, I anxiously bit my lip. It seemed like I hadn’t seen my daddy in forever. But then, to a ten-year-old time crept at an agonizingly slow pace.

I had difficulty making sense of what had been happening. All I understood was that daddy had a surgery of some kind.

All that mattered to me was that I hadn’t been able to see him for what seemed like a long time. (In those days, 1964, kids were not allowed to visit hospital rooms.)

My daddy was the strongest man I knew. Not strong like those pictures of Charles Atlas in the back of my Archie comic books, body glistening in a semi-crouch with a globe of the world on his shoulder, promising to turn any 98-pound weakling into a mirror image of him. Nor was daddy strong like my older cousins who lifted weights, had tattoos on their arms and wore their tight t-shirts with the sleeves rolled up to give full exposure to their bulging biceps.

Those people were more like caricatures, distant and unattainable to me.

Daddy never looked like he was afraid of anything.

His vise-like grip was inescapable (I should know. I’d tried to dance my way out of it many times, always failing). Even his thumps on my head could make my eyeballs rattle in their sockets.

Daddy’s voice boomed like thunder, especially when he was preaching, or when I was in trouble. His voice could rattle the windows and rattle my nerves, making me feel like peeing in my pants when I had to face him.

I was afraid of my daddy, but I loved him, too.

And I missed him.

I asked my older sister a thousand times, “When is daddy coming home?”

She tried to explain it to me using words like “cancer,” “kidney removed,” “fifty-fifty chance.” She was very dramatic about it all, but I made no sense of it.

All that mattered to me was that daddy had been gone a long time and I’d grown fearful.

The strong man was not home. Who would protect us?

A few nights earlier, I was sitting in the car in the parking lot of the hospital with my Grandma Johnson, a round faced woman with a quick laugh that has a musical lilt to it. My momma had gone in to see daddy and, instead of going with her to see her son, Grandma had stayed in the car with me.

I pressed my face against the window looking up at the towering building, trying to guess which room he was in.

Grandma gently rubbed my back and said, “It’s going to be alright. You’ll see your daddy soon.”

I don’t know why, but I began to cry. She folded me into her bosom and softly hummed a familiar hymn.

Finally, the day came when I was going to get to see daddy. My brothers, sister, and I formed a half circle in front of the elevator door. Mama had gone up to get him and bring him down to us.

The door opened.

The only people in the elevator were my mother, my dad, and a nurse. Daddy was sitting down and is in his pajamas. Even I knew you weren’t supposed to wear pajamas in a public place like a hospital lobby. What is he thinking?!

Unable to contain myself, I rushed forward and banged my ankle and knee into something hard. Looking down, I suddenly realized that daddy was in a wheelchair.

A wheelchair Why a wheelchair?

Mama shooed me back. “Let us roll him out of the elevator, David.”

I stepped back, embarrassed.

Daddy’s face didn’t look right. His deep tan had been replaced by an ashen gray.

The nurse rolled him into the semicircle of my siblings and grandmother.

Again, I rushed to hug him, this time from the side to avoid the armor of the wheelchair. I threw my arms around his neck and pressed my face into it.

Daddy groaned in pain.

Mama took my arms from around his neck and said, “You have to be careful. You’ll hurt him.”

I backed away, confused.

The strongest man I knew had fallen, having received a mortal blow.

I felt like I was losing my footing, as if an earthquake had taken place.

I took refuge beside my stocky grandmother who put an understanding hand on my shoulder to steady me while she dabbed her eyes with a tissue.

It was a pivotal moment in my life.

In the coming weeks and months, I began to understand that everything is subject to change. Our family was turned upside down as daddy lay in bed, the twin hammers of surgery and subsequent cobalt treatments having beaten him down. And momma got a job and went to work.

Watching my daddy’s efforts to reclaim his health, I began to understand there are different kinds of strength. There’re the strengths of will power and character and determination, an indomitable spirit that refuses to give up.

There’s also the strength of family, as my brothers and sister and I shared new responsibilities in our home. I learned how to iron a shirt and how to hang clothes on a clothesline to dry, being sure to shake as many wrinkles as possible out of the wet items before hanging them up.

The strongest man I ever knew eventually returned to his rightful place in our home. But my view of him had changed. He seemed even stronger than before.

And I suspect our family was stronger, too, for having walked together through the valley of the shadow of death.

* Taken from The Wit and Wisdom of David Johnson, Volume I1: The Hairy Catfish Caper.