A friend died two days ago after several years of suffering. I met James Fetty after he was admitted to the local hospital for a quickly spreading MERSA-like leg infection. The prognosis was grim – the infection had started in his left leg and had become so severe in just a few days that doctors were forced to amputate.
Not even a week had passed, and James was faced with the news that the infection had inexplicably spread to his right leg. His wife was out of town, rushing home, but not expected to arrive until several hours after his surgery.
James had been an aircraft mechanic working on A-6 Intruders several decades earlier, the same aircraft I had flown in the Navy. Being in different squadrons—never mind that James was enlisted and I was an officer—I had no inkling of James Fetty’s existence before reading a Facebook post one afternoon. The post requested that anyone who knew James get to the Whidbey hospital immediately to comfort James.
I decided to drive to the hospital. Although James and I didn’t share a past, the memories we each had were common in experience: the flight deck, close calls, and liberty. Still, I felt uncomfortable, as if I were presumptuous in thinking I could help relieve James’s fear. As it turned out, spending ninety minutes with James made a huge difference—two old Navy guys jokingly lightening the weight of the world. As he was wheeled away, he wore a sardonic grin, a courageous response to tough circumstances.
Since that day, James and I kept in touch, exchanging playful rants about life’s cosmic silliness. He would call me his guardian angel. Awkwardly implausible, still, maybe he was right.