The Fragility of Life

                                                    Life’s Fragility

A frightened teenager with tender pink skin lies on a gurney as his father caresses his hair.

An elderly woman enters. She is coughing blood, this ominous symptom giving her terror.

Parents clutching feverish and crying babies. Homeless men,

Either drunk or disoriented or both, crying for attention.

The nurses tend to them. Friendly yet detached, warm yet indifferent, fulfilling their role

Helping people when they are at their most vulnerable,

When they are afraid of death, afraid of a life that is so fragile,

A fragility that is often ignored or forgotten, and difficult to reconcile,

With life’s delights. Until one, inevitably, finds himself in the sterilized confinement of the emergency room,

Surrounded by the sick and needy, impatient to leave the hospital, impatient to resume

Their fragile lives

This was inspired by my visit to the hospital emergency room in Toronto last week. I was there because I fell off my bike: as I was cycling across an intersection that was full of streetcar tracks, my front tire got caught in one of them and I lost control, impacting the cold hard pavement while onlookers stared, wondering whether I was seriously injured. It turns out that I was not. I got up immediately, picked up my damaged bike and took it to the sidewalk. The elbow and knee on the right side of my body were bloodied, and although I could walk, I felt a piercing pain on my right hip and in my right-side rib cage. Luckily, I was about 100 meters from St. Joseph’s hospital. I walked over to the emergency room to get checked out, and it turns out that I broke a rib. My first question to the doctor was: could I continue to cycle? He said yes, but that I should be more careful. My next question was: could I continue my hip hop dance lessons? He said of course because I am in good shape.

The experience was and is painful. Certain movements and activities, like lying down or laughing, hurt. But it was also very positive for several reasons. First, it forced me to rethink my capacity as a cyclist. I have been an avid bike-rider for almost three decades, and in that time period I have developed a certain talent, the kind that comes whenever one repeatedly practises something. The knowledge of this talent made me overconfident, and falling and breaking my rib has taught me that I have a lot to learn. No matter how good I get, there will always be that unforeseen circumstance that happens when one least expects it. Now, I am hyper aware whenever I cross streetcar tracks, and this awareness will likely prevent that kind of accident from ever happening again, but who knows? Lurking silently around the corner of some other street might be some other known-unknown that will make me vulnerable to another bike accident.

Mostly importantly was the reminder of how fragile life is. One moment I was cycling down Queen Street, full of energy and life and potential and optimism, and the next moment I was lying bloodied and broken on the street, and in need of the help of medical doctors who thankfully were but a short distance away. It was a metaphor of this strange life that we find ourselves in, where one wrong turn, or a miscalculation, or one momentary distraction can lead even the strongest among us lying helpless and in need of assistance. My strong impression of life’s fragility was reinforced when I entered the emergency room. While I was groaning in pain and impatiently waiting to be attended to, I closely observed the people coming in, some of whom are mentioned in the poem above. A young man, no older than 19 or 20, comes in shaking and crying and complaining of severe chest pain. He probably believed he was dying of a heart attack, although most likely he was suffering from severe anxiety. And then an elderly woman comes in coughing blood into a rag. I listened as the nurse asked her questions: “do you have a history of tuberculosis? Do you have cancer?” “Not that I know of,” answered the elderly lady. For all I know, she may have been diagnosed with cancer or something serious shortly after she was taken to speak to a doctor.

The knowledge of life’s fragility is unnerving, but it is also a salutary reminder that tomorrow is not guaranteed to anyone. This induces a kind of existential humility about the universe and one’s place in it. It encourages one to treasure the things that matter, such as love, and recognize that the things that we often strive for—material gain, status, and prestige—are ultimately irrelevant. It helps one to be grateful to be alive, to have a sensory apparatus to perceive, a mind to think, and people to care for. Funny how it takes a biking accident to become vividly conscious of that.