Table Talk: Adjustments

Mixed media with acrylic washes and graphite, Phillip Hoyle

     Yesterday I was pleased to work again with Lynn. For a year I had given monthly massages to this thirty-some-year-old, well-organized man. He regularly scheduled his massage at the AIDS clinic and never missed an appointment. Then, right after he told me he was going to go on disability, he quit scheduling. I assumed he must have taken an extended trip to his family home or moved from the community. Yesterday, one year and ten days later, he returned for a massage.

     Lynn hadn’t been away. He came into the therapy projecting cynicism, anger, and disappointment, although he remained pleasantly mannered as usual. His past year had been full of difficulty and challenges he felt he hadn’t met very well. Almost simultaneously, Lynn lost two important mainstays of his life: work and being a jock. Leaving his job was devastating. He had worked almost everyday for years, part-time while attending junior and senior high school and full-time ever since. He wondered if it was wise to quit work. Without it, he has lived with both regret and frustration. His job wasn’t his only loss. In a year’s time he lost an alarming amount of his muscle bulk. With horror he watched his butt fall away and his arms shrink to half their former size. He had to give up weight lifting due to a cold that had persisted for months. I recalled from earlier conversations how important weight lifting and running had been to him. His losses were great.

     Perhaps his not going to work and suffering such dramatic body changes threw him into an extended dying process. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross described the process as a progression through denial, isolation, anger, bargaining, and depression towards the eventual acceptance of one’s impending death. I wondered if the feelings Lynn expressed were manifestations of anger or if he had progressed on to depression. I am not sure. But something changed recently, something that prompted him to reactivate his relationship with his AIDS case manager and to schedule a massage with me.

     I have been thinking over several things Lynn said during yesterday’s massage. He told me he had asked to be taken off the subscription lists of several AIDS-related magazines because he didn’t want to focus his life on the disease. “I’m just a guy who happened to get AIDS,” he explained. He expressed his impatience with individuals who major in being gay and HIV-infected people who make the disease their main focus. He, by contrast, wants simply to be a person who is homosexual and who just happened to get AIDS. He seemed angry about his muscle loss, his persistent illness, and his own inability to accomplish almost anything since he quit working. Perhaps his inability to get on with his life, especially when almost all his time has become discretionary, is a manifestation of depression.

     I wonder if Lynn’s re-emergence represents an acceptance of his eventual death and an acceptance that he is not dead yet. Kubler-Ross’ work emphasizes the function of hope and its almost constant presence for many people. Perhaps this double acceptance, should my surmise be correct, is, in fact, the emergence of Lynn’s deep hope in life.

     Perhaps coming back to me for massage marks some kind of acceptance of his death. Am I, as a massage therapist, to be an instrument of Lynn’s acceptance of death? I suppose so. Lynn may have come back because he knows I will accept and love his body even though it is betraying him. I assured him he still has a beautiful body, an ample butt, a wonderful face, and is a fine person even as he watches his muscles become smaller. Did he get strength from me? I don’t know. He did get acceptance. When someone compliments your body while they are running their hands all over it, perhaps you can more easily accept the idea of their sincerity. Or you can assume they really like you! Either one may be supportive enough.

     I probably cannot express how meaningful Lynn’s return to massage is for me. At first, I was simply pleased to see him. As the complexity of his reasons for returning started to become clearer to me, I found gratification in the fact that he counts me and my work as important in his life. And I am inspired by observing his responses to his dying process, even though its details still seem a bit unclear to me. I look forward to whatever time we have left to work together, whether weeks or years.

     We had a wonderful conversation while I worked on him yesterday. He received a good massage, many affirmations of his life and body, helpful talk, sound advice, and loving acceptance. It seemed like a very successful session. He left the clinic with his face alive, with a childlike radiance revealed through twinkling eyes and smiling mouth. Massage therapists know that anger can rarely be maintained while receiving a massage. Perhaps it emerged again today, and Lynn is still dealing with the anger, the depression, and the threat of hopelessness. But he is dealing with his life, making adjustments, and that’s hopeful.