Mr. Musau

The following short story has been shortlisted to appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul - The Power of Positive scheduled to hit bookstores in the U.S. in October, 2012.

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I stared down at the newspaper that lay on the table in front of me, idly drumming the red ballpoint pen in my hand against my coffee mug. I had been looking through the job vacancies section but none of the openings listed seemed to fit what I was looking for. I looked up and caught my reflection in the window – sitting at this desk, in my perfectly tailored charcoal-grey business skirt suit.  You would have never guessed that that was the image of me sitting in a men’s high-end clothing store in a mall. What was I doing here? I didn’t belong. I looked around at all the men’s suits hanging neatly in rows, the expensive fabric almost shimmering under the lights that shone on them. I had recently found myself out of a job and had taken up the position of store manager for this up-scale clothing store as a temporary solution while I searched for work in the corporate world that I was better qualified for. It had only been a month and my frustration at not finding another job had been growing steadily.

My attention turned to a well-dressed woman who had just walked into the store, pushing a man in a wheelchair. At once, one of the store attendants rushed towards the man in the wheelchair to greet him. “How are you feeling, Mr. Musau?” he asked. The man stared blankly ahead of him as though he had not heard the question. He was also well-dressed but he slumped in his wheelchair, and had on his face a look of resignation. I had heard about Mr. Musau from the store attendants – he was a regular customer at the store and a good tipper. He had recently suffered a stroke and nobody had seen him for about six weeks.

The woman wheeled Mr. Musau over to the table where I had stood up from my chair, and said to me, “I’m going to pick out some new shirts for my husband. I’ll leave him here while I look around.” I nodded and smiled as she parked Mr. Musau’s wheelchair at one end of the table. “Hello there, sir,” I said as I sat down again. Mr. Musau did not respond. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Silences made me uncomfortable and I usually ended up babbling away in spite of the lack of response.  

“My father had a stroke four years ago,” I blurted out without thinking. Mr. Musau continued to stare into space. “He had a blood clot in his brain which caused the stroke,” I continued “He was in a wheelchair too after that and had partially lost the use of his right leg. He had also suffered memory loss. It was incredibly difficult for him to go from being the head of the household to being dependent on my mother and me. I think he even became depressed when he got home from the hospital, and wouldn’t speak much for a few days. Then, as though something in his head had snapped, he began to behave differently. He wouldn’t allow us to do anything for him unless he had tried to do it himself first and been unable to. A couple of weeks later, he began to push himself to try and stand up from his wheelchair and walk a couple of steps at a time. He would sometimes fall down and we would have to help him up, but he always got right back up and kept trying. My father has always been a determined man. Every week, he would make it farther and farther from his wheelchair without losing his balance. Eventually, he did away with the wheelchair and was able to walk on his own without any assistance. He was back to being completely independent!” Mr. Musau had not even glanced my way the entire time that I had been speaking. “It’s incredible what the power of the mind can do, Mr. Musau,” I added softly.

At that moment, Mrs. Musau walked up to us with a bag in her hand and said to me, “I hope he hasn’t been a bother. Thank you for keeping him company.” “Not at all, Ma’am,” I replied. “Have a great day! See you later, Mr. Musau,” I called out as Mrs. Musau wheeled him out of the store.

A few weeks after that meeting with Mr. Musau, I was offered a job with one of the corporate firms I had applied to, and joined them immediately. Glad to finally have found my niche, I moved on and seldom discussed my short time spent managing the clothing store. As for Mr. Musau, I had completely forgotten about him. That was, until one Saturday, a year later when I got an unexpected call from the new store manager at the men’s clothing store. The manager said that a Mr. Musau had been asking for me for months and had finally persuaded the manager to retrieve my contacts from their system and call me so that he could speak with me. Was this really the same man who would not utter a word for the entire duration that I was with him?

Bewildered and caught off guard, I agreed to speak with Mr. Musau. “Hello?” His voice was unexpectedly steady and strong. “Hi there, Mr. Musau!” I said, taken aback, “How have you been?” The steady voice replied, “I have been trying to contact you for many months now,” he said. “I need to tell you something. After my stroke, everybody around me, including my wife, was treating me like I was already dead. I prayed every night that God would take me and relieve me of my misery and the situation I was in. And then I met you. You spoke to me as though I still mattered, even though you may have thought I wasn’t listening to you. You inspired me with your story about your father and how he used positive thought to reverse his disability. I would like very much to meet with you and your father.” With a lump in my throat, I said, “Of course, Mr. Musau. We can come and see you at home if you like – it may be more convenient for you.” The words that ensued from the other end of the line were ones that moved me a great deal. “My dear, I want to show you what your words have done for me. Thanks to you, I can now drive myself or walk to wherever it is convenient for you to meet! I want to thank you in person for helping me to realize that it was up to me to make sure that I did not waste away.” As a tear escaped and rolled down my cheek, he asked, “Isn’t it indeed incredible what the power of the mind can do?”

Touch

The following short story has been published in Chicken Soup for the Soul - Family Caregivers (2012)

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Touch

We all yearn to return to those days when we were completely taken care of --
unconditional love, unconditional attention.
~Mitch Albom, Tuesdays with Morrie

It was a gloriously sunny Sunday morning. Even the thick drapes in my bedroom couldn’t completely shut out those beautiful golden rays. I lay in bed, reminiscing as I did on most occasions when I had the luxury of a lie-in. On this lazy morning, my mind drifted randomly to a night more than two decades ago.

There were always certain memories from my childhood that resurfaced more often than others. That night in particular would replay itself in my mind quite often. I remember pulling the soft white pillow over my ears and sobbing hysterically as I lay in my bed, wishing that the shouting would stop. It was like that most nights. They would be downstairs in the living room. He would be yelling at her, and she would be crying silently as he did. I couldn’t understand why he was so horrid to my mother. She was such a gentle soul.

I remember my bedroom door suddenly being swept open, and my brother barging in. He flipped on the light switch and stormed over to my bed, looking enraged. I had stopped sobbing and was trembling in fear. At seventeen years, my brother was just as scary to me as my father was at that point. “Get out of bed,” he said in a gruff voice. He grabbed my hand, roughly pulling me out of bed. I started to sob again as he dragged me unwillingly down the stairs and toward the shouting. I remember my father whirling around in mid-sentence as he heard my whimpering sounds coming from behind him. My brother then shoved me in front of my father and yelled, “Look at what you’re doing to your daughter!”

I guess as I grew older, I forgot what happened after that. Maybe things got better. Maybe worse. I couldn’t remember feeling hatred for my father. Perhaps I stopped hating him after a while. Or perhaps I never did quite hate him. He was, after all, my father. In the past eight years, he suffered two debilitating strokes and was reduced from the alpha male he once was to a meek man with an almost childlike disposition. The roles between us switched. I was now the caregiver. The breadwinner of the family. My father had been emasculated.

I yawned and stretched my arms as I sat up in my bed. I reached over and pulled a book that I had been reading the night before off the nightstand. It was a book by Mitch Albom called Tuesdays with Morrie and had been highly recommended by many friends. I opened the book to where my bookmark lay and began to read. A couple of pages later, I stopped and went back a page to re-read what I had just read.

Mitch, the author, was talking to Morrie about how he managed to stay positive in spite of having lost his independence and needing a nurse to bathe him, lift him and wipe his behind. Morrie’s response was that, strangely enough, he had begun to enjoy his dependency. He said it was like going back to being a child again. I read that section over and over again as the tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t remember the last time I had hugged my father. Truth be told, I didn’t enjoy being too close to him. He always smelt like medicine and something that reminded me of a nursing home for the elderly. It made me uncomfortable.

I got out of bed and made my way to the bathroom. As I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I thought about this some more. My father and I had never been that affectionate in the past either. He had been revered and feared before his present condition. What was I to do? Completely shock him with an embrace out of the blue? What would he think? How weird would it feel for me? Did I really even care enough to try it?

I could hear my mother bustling about in the kitchen as I walked toward the living room, where I knew my father would be watching TV. Sure enough, there he was -- in his comfy single-seater couch with the clicker in his hand, staring blankly at the moving images on the screen before him. He barely looked up at me as I walked into the room and mumbled good morning. I settled onto the loveseat at the far end of the living room, watching my father’s lack of response to the comedic actions of the characters in the sitcom.

Suddenly, I felt a surge of emotion run through my body as I stood up and walked slowly over to my father. He continued to look straight ahead at the TV screen, seemingly oblivious to my movement. I knelt down beside his couch, with my arms resting on the cushioned right arm of the sofa, and softly rested my head on his shoulder, my hair nestled in his neck. What was probably seconds felt like an eternity, but then I lifted my arm and placed it over his other shoulder and held him as tightly as I could. If I had had any doubt in my mind about whether I loved my father, they were obliterated in that moment -- when I felt his body trembling under my head as he began to sob uncontrollably.