Life hangs by a thread. The world reminds you every day, cruelly, in a Gold Coast courtroom, at the bottom of a water ride, in the glare of cameras, in a vale of tears.
You never know when, and yet it may not come before weâre 94 or more, and that seems a small miracle, and it is.
Completely out of the blue a few weeks ago, and in a matter of hours, a friend found himself looking over the edge, tubes running in and out of him, full of serious drugs. I didn't grasp for a time how bad it was because the way he put it in a text was: âOkay I'm in Intensive Care with pneumonia. Beat that.â
We have swapped hospital banter before. I was flat on my back in the emergency department one morning, texting, because I have heart attacks in my history and whenever I faint, I get an ambulance ride. I texted: âit says CP next to my name on the admission board. Some others have it too. No idea what it stands for.â He texted back âComplete Pussy.â It in fact means: Chest Pain.
When the moment comes, when you see over the edge, when youâre thinking oh man, no, is this it, and then it works out okay, how do you feel?
Some people walk away relieved, contemplative, like my friend. Some people get tentative, unsure about everything they ever thought they knew. That was me at 27, home from coronary care, washed ashore, thinking: I don't want another one. I must not exert myself. I must remain very still.
I might have stayed that way a long time if a friend hadnât helped. Iâve never properly thanked her. She said: come with me, weâre walking down the drive to the front gate. She said: it wonât kill you. She said: you can trust a nurse to know what sheâs doing. We walked.
A week or two later another friend rang and said âIâm going to the pool. I do 40 lengths. You should come.â I said I didn't think I could do even one full length. He said âcome anywayâ. I did. I slogged to the other end. He said âcome back tomorrow. See if you can do two.â He kept at me, I kept going back. In a month I was doing 40 lengths.
Anna got me walking, Steve got me swimming. Sometimes a few words are all it takes to shift your life. Sometimes it takes you a long time to get around to thanking them.
You can do good, you can do harm. You can say something entirely offhand and leave a thought burned into a young mind. You can say to a six year old girl eating a muffin âyou'll need to do plenty of dancing to burn that offâ. If she can recall those words ten years later, it means more than nothing. No single thing brings on an eating disorder but why do people talk that way?
A friend spent years at a Christian school of the creationist conservative kind. In maths they learned about Godâs magic numbers. In science they learnt that the world was created in seven days. The girls were told they should be submissive to the boys.
Just in time, the school fell apart and my friend moved to a regular high school. Capable, caring teachers got her going. She passed School Certificate, she qualified for university. She wasnât sure. The church had told her university was for boys, not girls; she didnât think she was smart enough.
Her teacher heard she hadnât applied, called her into her office one day: was she really not going? She told her she should, that sheâd enjoy it. She sent her off with application forms and booklets, kept checking, kept asking.
Eventually my friend thought: yes. Maybe she would go to Otago, far away. The teacher arranged it all for her, made sure the application was posted.
A few words can turn a life. Teachers do it every day. Itâs beyond belief we don't pay them well. No pay is enough to make Auckland truly affordable at the moment, but if we don't pay them properly who ever will explain to our privileged youth what a real man does?
