A life almost slips away
I knew the kind elderly gentleman sitting in his truck in the gravel parking lot. When I tried to speak to him, however, he didn’t respond.
I tapped on the glass of his half-open window. Finally, he looked over.
“How are you?” I asked.
But something was wrong. I realized that his confusion, slurred speech, and trouble moving his arm were all the signs of a stroke in progress. I immediately called 911.
On the surface it seemed to be pure luck that I was standing there to save him. But, in truth, I believe three forces of the human spirit had intervened.
Here’s how it unfolded — and what it has to do with writers saving the lives of ideas that might otherwise perish.
The heart of Doyle
We lived in Arizona when my son joined a recreational hockey league that used inline skates on outdoor arenas. Parents brought their kids to a local rink for pick-up games, dropping them off to return later. Given the nature of the stick-swinging, fast-skating sport, it never felt like a good idea to leave the kids unattended, so I’d sit and work in the car until they were done.
Doyle, the grandfather of a good friend of my son, also hung around for these sessions. He was a physical tower of Oklahoma charm — warm and sweet with the kids. An extroverted talker, his southern drawl was thicker than cough syrup.
Unlike me, Doyle never distracted himself with work, reading, or other activities while he watched the kids play on the open-air rink. His simple, undistracted attention — just sitting there in his dilapidated orange Ford pickup — was a kind of rare gift. It felt as though his quiet presence was invisibly holding the immediate universe together; as though the skaters, the desert sand, and the yellow finches darting through the saguaro cactus would all drift off into space in the absence of his stable and steady gaze.
On this particular day, I was trying to focus on my work, but my thoughts kept wandering back to Doyle. We sat in our separate vehicles while I responded to emails and he affectionately watched his grandson scrimmage with the other boys.
I was often touched by Doyle’s devotion, but as an introvert it’s not my habit to be social, so I didn’t initiate conversations with him. And yet this time, a small voice inside nudged me to go speak with him. I tried to ignore that instinct in favor of my productivity, but the notion wouldn’t go away.
Looking over at Doyle, his generous attention on the kids inspired me to put my work away and to connect.
Something was moving me
I put away my laptop, got out of the car, strolled up beside his window — waiting for him to realize I was there.
But he didn’t.
When I tapped lightly on the half-open window, he turned to look at me — seeming confused. When he tried to speak, his words were mumbled and peppered with odd concepts and phrases. Starting to suspect a problem, I asked him to roll the window down the rest of the way. The full alarm went off in my brain when I saw he couldn’t make his left arm move.
I called 911 immediately and, as luck would have it, an ambulance happened to be minutes away. In a blur of sirens and white uniforms, Doyle was in the local emergency room within ten minutes of his stroke.
Doyle’s family was spared the suffering of his loss that day. To them, I was a hero. Every time I see his daughter, the mother of my son’s friend, she credits me with saving her father’s life, but it never felt that way.
It felt more as though some higher forces had taken hold in me — beyond my usual habits — to attend to this one unique life.
I’ve pondered many times over the years how it happened that Doyle got the help he needed in a critical moment and how I became involved with providing it.
3 life-giving forces of the human spirit
Attention
Doyle’s quality of attention was a rare thing to see. It didn’t hurt that he likely didn’t even know how to use a smartphone and was probably raised in a slower-paced time and place. But his contentment and way of being were magnetic. The busyness I engaged in my car always felt a little off when I was side-by-side with him. Like I was missing something. Without a shred of criticism or aggression, purely by demonstration, it was as though he was teaching me how to remain available for what really matters. That quality of attention, invoked by Doyle, was already in the air. Without even realizing it, I had been seeded with the force of attention that would eventually attend to him. In essence, attention itself took care of Doyle, as Doyle had served attention while being present at his grandson’s hockey sessions.
Affection
When attention is combined with a mood of affection, it creates an environment of safety. It felt as though Doyle was protecting everything in our vicinity with his full embrace of the moment. He was a one-man observation tower, not directing any traffic, but just affirming its ebb and flow with his welcoming witness. The notion of a guardian angel comes to mind; a force that “watches over” with the intent to preserve, bless, and maintain the existence of other beings with affectionate presence.
Courage
The elements of attention and affection, married together, result in what some might call purpose. When we become aware of a pressing need or an inspiring possibility, and our being sings in resonance with that need or potential, we are given the courage to overcome our fear. Doyle brought the possibility of dedicated presence to my attention and awakened my affection for that condition—leading to the courage to act in the face of my social fears.
The writing hero
In truth, a hero is simply someone who does not deny the natural forces of the human spirit. When our writing is moved by those forces, it inspires. And yet, aligning with attention, affection, and courage requires swimming upstream against a cultural torrent of distraction, cynicism, and caution.
If we’re not paying attention, we may fail to answer when an idea that seems unproven, unpopular, contrary to popular opinion, inconvenient, ambiguous, or even divine knocks on the door of our awareness.
How often have we ignored an inexplicable affection for a line of thinking out of fear that we’ll be judged for keeping company with such a low-brow, silly, off-the-wall, or far-fetched notion?
Our lives as writers begin when we find the courage to express overlooked ideas—bad ideas, unsavory ideas, preposterous ideas, inefficient ideas, incendiary ideas—even shining, intimidating, or uncomfortably brilliant ideas.
What idea have you been ignoring?
Let’s spare each other the rehash of the already popularized topics, the talk of the content town.
What discovery of the human spirit has been given to you that you’ve shied away from — a discovery that part of you is aghast at having been chosen to represent, knowing you need to spray it, in hot pink paint, across the walls of the sterile ideological thought-mall that sits at our cultural town center?
You’re a writer. The world needs you to leave the comfort of your own vehicle and save creation’s darlings from dying alone in the cab of a junkyard truck.
What shimmering, dangerous, perhaps loony idea has been pressing on your temples that you can lend your attention, your affection, and your courageous voice to— declaring that it will not perish under your watch?
Lay it on us.
Courage Writer
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You’ve had a big life, and you want to share it.
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Brilliant piece, Rick. Your reflections on attention, affection, and courage resonate with me. Interestingly, these forces compel me to write but I’ve noticed them showing up in other areas of life. How I engage with people, the energy I bring to the conversation, speaking with confidence.
Doyle sounds like a big-hearted man. As always, your stories inspire. Thank you for sharing them with us.
This is fantastic, Rick! And I 100% agree on the underlying message that you so thoughtfully packaged into such an emotional yet crispy and clear piece of writing. Going out and rescue our overlooked ideas, giving them the attention they deserve with the awareness that’s necessary to later convey them in writing is a big, powerful idea that needs to be spread out more and more. Thank you for sharing this story and this energizing message.