My friend, Murphy, is ill. He was recently diagnosed with a glioblastoma multiforme tumor. It is a nasty brain tumor that doesn't give up no matter how much surgery, chemotherapy and radiation you give it. Murphy maybe has a year.
I met Murph 18 years ago when I started working at the pool. Back then he was an icon at the pool. He came almost every day by bike to swim and water walk. He would wander into the facility pushing his bike, and he'd sing or yell your name at a volume that would not pass in today's "indoor voice" world. He'd walk right out to the pool deck and just keep on going straight into the pool head first.
He liked to swim laps with flippers on his huge feet. Sometimes he would use a kickboard and stick his head out of the water to shout something at the lifeguards. Then he would take off his flippers, put on his water "weights", and go into the deep well to walk around. It was there that the lifeguards would listen to his stories and there where he would dispense worldly advice to all of us.
During the winter months, inside the stifling bubble that the city put over the pool to make it a covered facility, we lifeguards lived for 1:00 when we knew Murphy would arrive. He entertained us and broke up the monotony of the day. I don't think anybody ever charged him for swimming.
He stopped going to the pool a few years back after he had some melanoma cut out. He thought he should stay out of the sun. He joined a gym instead. He still exercised up until this tumor showed itself, causing him to have seizures and eventually brain surgery.
He has lost mobility in his right side, but he is slowly working to build it back. He is in a rehab facility. He is undergoing radiation. He is still talking loudly, and he's still singing. What he wants more than anything is to swim. I'm hoping that that will be something we can do just once more.
Soon.
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