Resiliency

I met “Jeffrey,” an African American Baptist man in his mid 60s, on the Skilled Nursing Facility floor one grey, San Francisco afternoon in January. Jeffrey had come to the hospital because of complications from diabetes. His blood sugar level had been rising and falling too quickly, the wound from his leg amputation below the knee was not healing well, and he had just gone completely blind in one eye.

At first, Jeffrey was very formal with me. He smiled and told me he was “doing just fine.” Feeling there was a discrepancy between “doing fine” and “being in the hospital with a degenerative illness that was causing blindness, reduced mobility and independence, and dietary restrictions,” I decided to joke around with him a little in the hopes that he would be able to relax and share his story.

I found my chance when Jeffrey balled up a kleenex and tossed it easily into a trash can across the room. I replied, “For not having sight in one eye, your depth perception is pretty darn good.” Jeffrey paused for a moment, the statement surprising him. Then, he began to laugh. It was one of those deep belly laughs, and he laughed so hard tears began sliding down his face, stating, “Yes, yes, I can still make a basket!”

We began to talk about his long battle with Type II Diabetes, and how it had really caused him to make a lot of changes in his life. When I asked him what he looked forward to, what his future entailed, he began to speak of his neighborhood.

Jeffrey lives in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in San Francisco. Having lived there his whole life, he remembers looking to the male elders in the neighborhood for help and guidance, saying: “I remember when I was a boy, and I looked up to all the old folks. Now, all the old folks are gone. It’s just me, now I’m the old folks!” Looking around himself now, he realized that he was one of the elders. He realized that diabetes was becoming rampant in his medically underserved neighborhood, and that it was his turn to step up as one of the wise leaders in his community. Jeffrey spoke of his neighbors, men in their 30s and 40s with young children at home, who were already dealing with diabetes and its effects. Jeffrey realized it was time to intervene.

Jeffrey was grieving for his lost eyesight, for his independence, for times when he did not have to check his blood sugar several times a day. However, by connecting his loss with the losses faced by his larger community, Jeffrey was finding a purpose and a calling. He was finding that he had wisdom to share, and that it was his turn to be a prophet. Jeffrey took the strength he found from his community, and turned it into a quest to help his community. This calling, this feeling that his work was not done in this world, made all the difference in the world.