I want to tell you about Nate.
My brother had a friend named Nate. Nate was smokin hot! I mean HOT! Like Johnny Depp HOT! Not only was he hot, he was rich...his tribe benefitting off their casino. Nate had new cars, nice clothes, pretty women...EVERYTHING. I met him awhile back at a party on a beach. At the time I wasn't single, but I couldn't take my eyes off him.
"I'm for real." he was telling us as he inhaled on a spliff " Maybe I have money, but I know how to rough it. I been there and done that...I ate powdered eggs." When he said that, everyone in the little group sharing the spliff laughed. I believed him. Nate's brother George, was not in the same tribe, but he was so dam happy all the time...his nickname was Curious.
Fast forward a couple of years. I had two sons and was single all of a sudden. I was sharing custody with the kids father but we lived in different states. One day we decided to make Indian tacos and have a party because it was someone's birthday or something...I don't remember. I was the only one out of my horny ass friends that had children. Nate came to the party and I was kinda-sorta seeing him, but not really...if you know what I mean. For the most part we were friends and sometimes more. Anyway, during the whole party and everything, while I was cooking...here's NAte in all his good looks and glory, laying on the floor playing Ninja Turtles with my sons for like 3 hours! Then they ran around the house until they got too tired and all ended up watching Nickelodeon. The song "Whatta man" came to my mind...lol.
Fast forward to the year 1999. Nate, my brother Trav, Jason, and a fool named Kyle drove me back all the way from Minnesota to the reservation. We came in two cars with my 3 boys and ended the journey at my Grandma Dod's house. i think they were trying to decide what to do for the night and I was just happy to be back on the rez. I found some beers, ok they were Malt in my grandma's fridge. I was like "What grandma doing with some Old english?" My auntie said..."Have them, if you want." I took the beers out to the boys and we cracked them open, enough for one for each of us, it was an early spring evening. We watched the boys run around in the yard
"This is badass." Nate said
"What?" Kyle asked him
"Just this." he said
I knew what he meant. Life....sometimes in the simplest form was badass. We wasn't doing anything, but we was living.
Nate took my brother and a bunch of other friends on a cross country tour, even catching New Orleans at Mardi Gras. The following summer Nate and his brother were involved in a head-on with a semi truck and George died instantly. Nate lived, but he is now paraplegic, needs a machine to breathe, and has no voice. When it first happened I used to dream of him gaining back control of his arms and stuff. I would wake up with the hope that someday he would be like he used to. I used to wonder if he had those dreams and if when he awoke ...it was unthinkable.
I know it is highly unlikely he will be back like that, but you know Nate lived. And he loved to live. He still lives with the help of machines, just not the same.
Some people should think about that when they complain about life. There is so much to be happy about, just look out your window.
6 comments:
You know, part of the fun of life sometimes is in the complaing... and sometimes you have to cross a river of tears to get to the other side. I'm guessing that whatever Nate lost, he's found a way to make up for it somewhere else. Sure, we also mourn for what we can't, but still have what we can to look foreward to.
Nate still sounds like "Whatta Man" to me...
You know, it sounds like Nate was living a pretty fast life. Maybe this is the fates way of telling him to slow his ass down...
This could happen to anyone of us...living in the present to me is the only sane way to go, because tomorrow may not come, or by some chance you come by prescience, you may not want it to. In any case, I feel like I'm "preaching to the choir".
in any case, NAte is not living how we perceived him to be or he did...in any case he is worse off than us, in any case nobody deserves that. He was a good guy.
Let me just say, no body deserves that....and I said paraplegic I meant quadraplegic. I want him to be half of what he was and I am sure he wishes less, no matter what nature told him, he was cool and he lived.
Um, ok maybe I am getting too defensive guys. BUT, when you get trapped in your own body will you say whatyou just did? Or will you say it everyday? Who knows what he thinks, he probably blames himself. I am not saying he is a bad guy. He NEVER was. He just lived, you know. If you had the money and opportunity, would you not? Maybe I need to blog this. Either way, Nate is,was, always will be my boy....he showed me a small portion of life and I will forever be grateful.
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