Byron: The Hospital Visit

While I was down in Austin for the whole GDC convention there was a particular event that happened and will forever stand out in my mind. One of my friends was having a problem breathing and, after consulting with my mother for a bit, we decided it would be best to just take him to the hospital. Now for the record, I hate everything about hospitals. Needles. Blood. White gloves. Everything. Yet there I was sitting in the emergency room of the hospital just waiting for my friend to make sure he was alright. That was when my attention was caught by a single man pacing around the ER.

The man looked to be much older than myself, I would place him in his late fifties, had medium length wavy gray hair, and a serious case of Shingles. He seemed to simply be mumbling to himself and grabbing his left thigh every so often, usually followed by an extreme look of pain across his face. Now for anyone that does not know what Shingles is, it can be extremely painful. It is a skin rash that forms much like Chicken Pox, small bumps on the skin, filled with puss, not fun stuff. Anyways, I decided, for some unknown reason, that I was going to start a conversation with this man. Why? To try and help distract his mind from the suffering he was going through.

Now for some reason our society has found it tabboo to talk to strangers, I can understand it in some cases yet not completely. The conversation that I had with this man, Byron he eventually told me, was one of the more entertaining and intellectual talks I have had in a while. We discussed movies and the progression of film from black and white silent films to todays digitally created ones. This man, who in normal aspects would have looked insane, was a complete film buff. We played a game for a while where I would say a movie and he would say all the lead actors that starred in it. How many did he get right? All of them. It was amazing to see someone so passionate about something that was merely a source of entertainment. That's when my mind began to drift onto a subject not as pleasant as movies, aging.

One thing that I noticed with Byron was the fact that in general he was "happy". Here was a man stricken with Shingles, apparently lived in public housing, had no money, no car, no job, and was simply loving life. I actually brought the subject up once during our hours of conversation. His response? "Getting old is not for wimps". That was it. In one sentence he was able to portray his whole ideal on the subject of getting old. I can honestly say though, since meeting Byron and listening to his passionately talk about movies, that I feel somewhat...better. Even though I was watching a man suffer in agony, talking about trivial matters, and clearly getting up there in age, he was completely appreciative of his existence. It just goes to show that there are people out there that are born only to show others what it means to live. Byron, you have inspired me on more levels than you can understand. Getting old is certainly not for wimps.