My 'Special' Friend. A tribute to the living.
His nickname is 'The Hook", and we met in our kayaks in an eddy of the Rio Grande, over 10 years ago. I had been talking to him for about 10 minutes before I realized he was missing his left forearm and had been paddling his kayak using a prosthesis designed over 80 years ago, a medical invention that was mothered by necessity in the aftermath of WWI. He'll happily tell you the story of how he lost his arm at age nine when he reached into an uncovered electrical transformer. A playmate of his watched as he was blown out of his sneakers by 7200 volts of electricity, launching him 30 feet through the air. The treating physicians hypothesized that the impact of landing on his chest most likely restarted his heart. He has met and corresponded with many victims of electrical shock, but has yet to meet one who has survived one of that magnitude. He was lucky. His mom, a RN, rushed him to medical care, where he spent 6 days in a coma, and another week watching his forearm wither and die in the bed beside him prior to its' amputation. He recounts how even at that young age, he felt like the gods had placed a task before him, and he thought, "Yeah! I can do this!". He grokked his handicap as his mantra and mission. It was a defining moment, and in a sense provided him at least one raison d'être. If you ask him, he will tell you he has two birthdays: on his first, he well and truly entered this world, and on his second he lost his left forearm and embarked on a new journey separate from the path he previously traveled. His sense of humor would probably compel him to describe it as a journey he undertook single-handed.
