THE SLED
Early childhood memories almost always come back to us in our adulthood. Sometimes they nurture us when we need that; sometimes they haunt us until we find a resolution. I saw the way this works, the stark realities of early trauma when I got to know a dear friend who lives here.
I had an experience a few years back that made me feel as though I received an answer to a question I have been asking myself: What can I do that will make me feel less anxious, less fearful of life in general? I had been feeling at a loss, without any idea what to do with the concerns I had.
I moved out of a rental house in November of that year because it was filled with mold and free-floating asbestos. I have been in the process of healing ever since. I still don't know if I am going to be OK, even after all this time.
The fear set in soon after the chemical engineer gave me the results of his air quality tests. He told me what was in there; I can’t believe that I was living in the mess of toxic mold and asbestos for five years. It was a frightening experience, and my head is filled with thoughts about how close I came to never knowing the depth of the problems in the house.
I was just getting sicker and sicker, as though I was the legendary frog in the pot of water that is slowly getting hotter and hotter till it’s too late.
I made a move to another house a week after the discovery of the toxic environment, and the relief I felt was dramatic. My health issues have all but disappeared. I feel like a new person, and my life seems to have turned around. It’s been the better part of two years since I left that toxic trap. I have become more aware of my surroundings as a result of what I went through, more aware of things that I never connected to my well-being and that of others in my life.
When the following happened one winter morning, it was like a lightbulb going off. This is one of those mundane things that happen, and yet suddenly you see there is nothing mundane about it.
I have a friend called Fred who has never ceased to amaze me with all his talents, his creative ideas, and his perseverance in life.
Fred is the one who told me I needed to "Get the hell out of there!" after I had a chemical engineer come to do a test of the entire environment of the house. The engineer found twenty-three types of mold, most of it toxic, and identified free-floating asbestos floating in the air from the insulation that was hanging from the rafters in the house I had been living in for so long!
If Fred had not been so forceful in his insistence on my leaving that house, I may not have had the courage to do so. I was in a very bad way, suffering depression, panic attacks, digestive issues, and so many problems with my breathing and my eyesight that I thought I was dying. I developed pneumonia from the toxic mold and could not figure out how I got so sick. I had back pain that could not be stopped—it was crippling, and I was not able to work for days because of it.
It was suggested by my doctor that I may have toxic poisoning; she was aware of mold toxicity and its subtle symptoms. So that’s why I had the place tested by this chemical engineer, someone I know from my real estate inspections. Mold is one mycotoxin that has become more and more prevalent here in the Hamptons—it thrives on moisture and warm weather. Mold has always been here, but some varieties are just now being recognized as deadly mycotoxins and if it is not treated carefully by a professional can slowly disable one who has been exposed for a significant length of time.
I almost died there in that house, but no one knew except for the chemical engineer and Fred. He saw my suffering and thanks to Fred’s advice, I removed myself from the toxic environment and became settled into the house I live in now. He helped me move in one day, to “get the hell” out and to safer ground. I moved to a small house on Hill Street, settling in as I recovered, but it took six months before I started to feel normal again. I had to take strong medication to rid myself of mycotoxins, the toxic mess that filled my body from the mold exposure.
During the long exposure to this toxic brew and my resulting ill-health, my real estate business suffered badly. Since I was unable to be in public places for any length of time because of my back pain, I was literally out of business. I was unable to do open houses or to show houses. I was in a completely untenable situation and was being slowly moved to the back of the line when it came to my recognition as a vital member of the team in my office. I forced myself to get my health issues handled and I was surprisingly successful at making a “come-back” after those long months of utter disability.
Fred had been a lifesaver of sorts for me. His steadfast support during that time helped me to see the light at the end of the tunnel and I was able to recover quickly. I owed Fred a lot when it came to his most recent contribution to my well-being and I was determined to help him out as much as possible, in spite of earlier difficulties. There was much that we had moved passed over time and the challenges of early complications in our long relationship were fading with time as we remained friends. We carefully and with mutual respect managed to heal what had become a literal disaster; our individual lives managed to thrive in spite of what appeared to be a permanent split. We worked together when we could and there was always a way to mend fences when we disagreed. It was a healthy friendship and I loved the way he treated people. But there were times when Fred was not around. There never was an explanation, just long spans of time where he was gone. I always managed to work around those times and I never quizzed him about it because, after all, we were not committed to each other in any way.
FRED
Fred has been my dear friend for years. I watched as he moved from his farm in Bridgehampton to a little house here in Southampton Village three years ago.
It was a sad time for Fred, but he went through it all without saying anything to anyone. I had no idea what he was dealing with. Fred was an extremely private person and not many people knew his story.
Fred never talked about his early life. It was almost as if it had never happened. He has had more than a few setbacks in recent years and he always managed to pull himself up by his bootstraps to get going again without a complaint. In fact, his setbacks always seem to propel him into new ventures and ideas about how to make others’ lives a little easier.
I was really surprised when he came by to see if I needed help with getting my firewood inside on this snowy day.
Fred had just been in the hospital for treatment of some rare ailment. His progress was surprisingly good, and he was given the go-ahead to start doing the things he loved to do again. I was told by an old friend that he was back at work because he was doing so well. His work was doing things for others, whenever and wherever they needed his help.
Now, here he was in my yard, heading over to pick up the snow-covered wood for me.
"Happy New Year, Fred!" I yelled from the back door as he trudged through the snowdrifts in the backyard. “Happy New Year to you, Holly!" he yelled back over the growling of the wind. "I figured you might need some wood brought in..."
"Yes, thanks." My voice was muffled by all the snow, but Fred heard, and he trudged ahead to the fence row where the huge pile of wood had been made even higher with all the snow. He was pulling some contraption behind him that appeared to be a big wooden box of some sort.
I watched Fred as he bent over to clear the snow away with his hands and as he pulled out log after log and dusted it off before he carefully laid each one in the box. His tall frame was bent into the wind. The snow whipped around him, leaving the grooves in his clothing and his hat filled with the white stuff.
I could see that he had a saw in his hand and, sure enough, he started to saw one of the bigger logs in half to fit it in with the rest. Slowly but surely he was filling up that old box of a sled.
He turned his back to the wind as it howled around him. The snow blew in sheets with strong gusts, making it almost impossible for him to breathe or to see what he was doing.
It took him about thirty minutes to get the right amount of wood in the sled and to head back toward the house. When he got close enough I could see he had a bandage on one of his hands, under a makeshift glove. He was looking very drawn and thin since I last saw him.
It had just snowed the day before, and we got sixteen inches of it here in Southampton, with more snow today. We also had a very low four-degree temperature this morning. The Hamptons are not accustomed to this!
Fred moved gingerly in the deep snowdrifts. They were three feet or higher in some spots and he was out of breath as he came up around the corner into the protected area of the porch.
"I think this is so nice of you to do this on a day like today and after you just got out of the hospital!!" He stopped at the steps and said:
"Well, you know I feel better when I can do something that is needed.” He was breathless as he removed his wet gloves to shake the snow from them.
“Not too much right now that anyone needs me for!"
I said, “How kind of you to be thinking of what you can do to help others while you are still sick!”
"Well, no one can tell me what to do to make myself get better, so I figured it out myself: I just need to find a way to fill a need---someone else’s need!" He grinned as he said that, making light of the enormity of his own suffering.
I thanked him for his kind help, brought some of the wood inside the back door to dry off, and watched him as he unloaded more of the wood. "Please take some of the logs for yourself, Fred"
I knew he had a stove that he could burn wood in. I knew because I had given him my old green woodburning stove. It was small but it put out heat better than anything I had ever seen. It was a Vermont Castings stove that I had for years. I bought it for my pool house on Pelham Street but rarely used it there. It was a housewarming gift to Fred when he moved to Southampton…housewarming in more ways than one!
He looked at me and said in a very low voice "Thank you so much--that will help out a lot. I know the weather is not going to warm up for a while, so this will be helpful."
" I see you made your own sled. Must be nice to be so handy." He grinned at me as he gingerly put his glove back on over the bandage and then pulled the other one on and looked down at the sled.
"You know, my Dad showed me how to make a sled when I was just a kid. I was so young, but he left me with all these memories, like this sled. Somehow I can remember every detail that he told me.”
“Sleds are really easy as long as you have old cabinets with drawers. That's all I did--I took the biggest drawer in the old cabinet in my garage...put two 2X4 skids on it, used some wide electrical tape, the silver kind. I just stuck that to those skids, added a rope pull and there ya have it. A good sled to carry a heavy load in deep snow."
He smiled then, a big broad smile, and said "You know what? I haven't felt so good in a long while. Really surprising how just doing something for someone that no one else can do helps to heal your mind and your body." I watched him as he turned to walk away in the deep snow, proudly pulling that makeshift sled behind him and feeling like a million bucks doing it.
I called after him: “You sure you don’t want to come in? I have a big fire going and we could have some hot chocolate or tea!” He was already headed out, too far away to turn around now! Fred just shook his head, with his hat bobbing on his head and his shoulders pressing into the wind. He took long steps in the deep snow and began his long journey home.
Dead of winter and it was freezing. I wondered if he was able to stay warm where he lived now. I should have told him to help himself to the woodpile anytime he needed some!
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