My friend John was a quadriplegic and permanent resident at King County Hospital. I met John in 1962 when I had a Seattle Times paper route in the hospital. He would buy both the morning and evening papers from me each day.
I was 14 years old and brimming with adolescent angst.
When John was 14 he often could be found on the Columbia River in eastern Washington where he enjoyed diving from the surrounding cliffs.
On one such dive he missed his target, hit a rock outcropping and severed his spine at the neck. From that day forward John was a quadriplegic and a ward of the state; his family seldom came to visit.
John appeared to me to have not a care in the world.
He’d long since reconciled himself to his situation. He told me:
- he knew he’d never get better,
- he knew he’d never leave the hospital
His only option was to make the most out of each day. So he decided to become a first rate horse handicapper.
It was in studying the sports page that he fell in love with horse racing, which became the motivation he used as a reason to live.
John became a professional gambler.
He designed his own system for handicapping horses and an elaborate contraption that enabled him to read the newspapers and racing forum.
John wasn’t addicted to gambling, he was a student of horse racing. He didn’t just toy with horse racing, he worked at it with unbelievable vigor. He spent hours with the racing forum, analyzing track conditions, jockey weight allowances, past performances, records of each owner and trainer.
He became successful in his wagering and well known in the racing community.
John admonished me, way before Nike, to find what I loved and – DO IT!
John would remind me that it made not one whit of difference that he was immobile. His job did not depend upon his mobility; his job depended upon his willingness to process large amounts of information concerning horses, jockeys, and track conditions.
John never complained to me about his life, for he was too consumed with living it. Then came a fateful day in November of 1963.
JFK had been assassinated and I knew everybody would be buying papers that day. I was really broken up. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, had been a figure of enormous significance to my family. I was in a stupor when I arrived at the hospital that afternoon to sell the evening paper.
When I came upon John he stopped me and passed on a long list of bets he wanted me to make as soon as possible. I was a little taken aback as I knew him to be a big fan of Kennedy. I said, “Haven’t you heard the president has been assassinated? How can you be working now, of all times, just after we’ve had this national tragedy?”
“Pat,” he said, “I need to still live my life even when all hope fades away.”
There were tears in his eyes as he went on to say, “There is nothing I can do to save the president’s life. He’s dead, but I’m not and neither are you. We have work to do even on this sad day.”
- John would not let a setback keep him from the business of living his life.
- Not the frequent bed sores
- Not the phantom pains
- Not the lack of family visits
- Not idle thoughts of what might have been
He spent no time worrying about the things not in his control.
John learned a lesson from his disability. It was a very hard lesson, but having learned it, he never found the need to unlearn it. He simply would not worry about anything that was outside his control.
And by any reasonable reckoning, he understood the true meaning of the Serenity Prayer.
I left his room and placed his bets that day – we had work to do.
Just a Thought…
Pat
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