When “Happy Veterans Day” Isn’t Enough

In November of 2010, I was working as a massage therapist at Les Champs Elysees in Bloomington, Indiana. One of the Indiana University sororities was having a formal that weekend, so the salon was abuzz with girls having their hair done; a few of them even dragged hesitant boyfriends in to our staff barber for a cut and a shave. I was in the staff lounge when our secretary came and interrupted my lunch to tell me that I had a "rough looking" walk-in massage client. “He seems a little weird,” she said. I raised an eyebrow. She shrugged.

I quickly finished up and hustled to the waiting room where a young man sat filling out his paperwork. He looked up and seemed startled that I was standing there. "Hi," I said, trying to hide my surprise at his appearance, "I'm Meghan. I'm the massage therapist who will be working with you today. How are you?" He said he was fine, trying not to make eye contact with me. He handed me his paperwork, and I instructed him to follow me.

He walked with a limp, but he appeared to be young, probably early to mid-twenties. He had black hair that was straight but shaggy, long-ish and slightly unkempt. He was clean shaven with a baby face, but his cheeks jutted out and his face was sunken with dark circles under his eyes. His eyes were bright blue with long eyelashes, and he was tall, quite tall, actually, but he was also rail thin with a too-large belt trying hard to hold up his too-large jeans. His t-shirt hung from bony shoulders, and because it was white, I could see that he was covered in a sea of tattoos, covering both arms and his bony chest. He was wearing black Chuck Taylor low top sneakers, and a wallet chain hung heavily from his jeans pocket. He carried a worn out black leather jacket slung over his arm.

He seemed shy, but he did not give off any of the typical massage “weirdo” alarms that a trained therapist knows how to spot. I wondered if he was ill, but his medical sheet did not disclose anything of interest. I gave him instructions and left him to get ready for his massage, then waited in the hallway, until I heard him call that he was ready. I went back into the massage room, where he lay face down under the top sheet, and as I rolled the sheet down and tucked it into the top of his boxers to begin the massage, I froze.

His entire back was mangled in deep, jagged, enormous scars, an array of slashes and recent evidence of reconstructive surgeries. A large portion of the tissue was missing from the top of his hip, which appeared to have been grafted onto another spot. "They're on my legs, too. I'm sorry," he said, apologetically. "I also have this one on my arm," he added, pointing to one I had not noticed yet.

The shock of the moment was such that before I could stop myself to compose, I blurted out, "Oh my God, what happened?" I immediately felt bad that I had said it, but I had never, in well over a decade of work in physical therapy and massage therapy offices, seen anything like what was before me on the table.

"It doesn't hurt when you touch it. Please don't be afraid to massage me," he said. It sounded like a plea.

“Of course,” I said. “I’ve been doing this for a long time. I’ll do what I always do, and if it’s too much or you want deeper tissue work, just tell me, and we’ll go from there.” He looked up and smiled a little, then put his head back down in the face cradle.

I took a deep breath, and I channeled what I learned back in massage school with my teacher in the mountains of Grand Junction, Colorado--"God, please guide my hands and use them to bring relief and healing to this man," I quietly prayed, and I began.

As I worked, the young man’s body began to relax, and his shyness started to fade. He began to talk, as some people do during a massage. His name was Ryan, and he was from somewhere out west. He was in Bloomington for this sorority formal, because his buddy from high school back home was going to Indiana University and had convinced him to drive to Indiana for the week. As it turned out, the buddy’s girlfriend had a roommate who had just broken up with her boyfriend, and she needed a last-minute date, so he had agreed to join them. He didn’t particularly want to. And he said he was pretty sure that his date was also not very keen on the idea, but there they were, all four of them, getting “pampered,” he said, sarcastically.

He told me his buddy had invited him to try to cheer him up because he had been struggling with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder since his return from serving overseas in the Army. I do not remember now, ten years later, if he was serving in Afghanistan or Iraq, only that it was in the Middle East. He said he knew his buddy meant well, but that coming to IU and “partying” was not exactly helping him to relax, that he felt more isolated and alone on campus with all of these clueless college co-ed’s than he did back home alone in his apartment killing time in between therapy sessions. “It’s also taken me almost a year to ween off of my prescription pain killers, and I’m not really feeling this whole sorority drinking vibe, ya’ know?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s not really my scene either.”

“So when they said we were coming here so they could get their hair and nails done, I thought maybe it would help me relax to get a massage,” he paused, and I could tell he was hesitating to ask me a question.

“What?” I asked.

“Is it gross to have to see and touch the scars?” he asked me, quietly.

“Not at all,” I told him. And it was true. The initial shock of seeing the mangled mess covering his back, legs, hips, arm, virtually most of his body from the neck down, had passed. Now I was just working. He was relaxing. The rigidity and nervousness were fading.

“I had eleven surgeries to reconstruct it all back together,” he shared. I waited for him to continue, because I felt him opening up and wanting to talk. But I was nervous. Whatever had happened to him was clearly horrific. I said another quick silent prayer, “God, help me to take in his words without taking on his energy. Fill him with your energy of love, please.”

“We were a part of a convoy, and the vehicle we were in drove over a landmine. There were eight of us in the truck. Five of my buddies died in the blast. I don’t remember much except that it was loud and bright, then dark.” He paused. I waited, continued working, listening. “Of the three of us who made it out, one of our buddies died in the hospital.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said quietly. I kept my hands working.

“Two of us made it back home. Just two of us, out of eight. No rhyme or reason. It could have easily been two other people. But it wasn’t. It was us--me and Brady,” he said. Then he added, “Brady couldn’t handle it. Two months ago his mom called and told me he committed suicide. So now it’s just me. I’m the only one left,” he said, with finality. He didn’t seem to say this so much to me as to someone far away, someone he was thinking about. I noticed he was crying--not a lot. Quiet, solemn tears, but they rolled slowly, and his body remained still and calm. But I did what I had been trained to do. I kept working. I kept listening. I kept my heart and ears open.

He continued to talk for the rest of the massage. I remember bits and pieces, but I spent a lot of that time concentrating on what I was doing and asking for strength and loving energy to fill that room, for both of our sakes. What he was carrying was heavy, heavier than the weights of most of the people I have ever known. I did not tell him that I had lost a friend to suicide after he had returned from serving overseas, back in 2004. My friend had not been physically injured overseas, but he did not return unharmed. The damage was irreparable for him, like it is for so many veterans.

I felt afraid for this young man, Ryan, who was younger than I was, just by a few years, but by most accounts, his whole life lay ahead of him. And he appeared to have lived centuries already. I listened to him with grace and love and let him talk while I completed that massage and did my job. Towards the end, he did what most clients do who open up--he apologized and suddenly seemed a little embarrassed. “I don’t know why I just told you all of that,” he said. “I haven’t told anyone about this stuff.”

I smiled warmly. “That’s okay. I’m just glad you felt comfortable enough to share it with me,” I told him. I left him to get dressed while I walked to where his friends were waiting in the lounge area. I made small talk with them while we waited for him. All three of them froze and looked towards the doorway. I turned around.

Ryan was standing there, upright, his face full of rosy color. He smiled a wide smile. His shoulders were resting naturally, his posture straight. His hair was a disheveled mess. His eyes were bright and energetic. “You guys don’t know what you missed. That was way cooler than a manicure,” he said. They laughed and gathered up their purses and bags. Ryan turned to me and looked me directly in the eyes. Some of my coworkers were staring. “Would it be weird if I gave you a hug?” he asked. “I don’t know why, but I want to hug you,” he added.

I laughed. “Sure,” I said. And he wrapped me up in a giant bony bear hug, but this time I began to cry. And when he let go, we looked at each other again, and he took my hands in his and said, “Thank you for this, for all of this today.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I am so happy we met each other,” I smiled at him. “And I hope you all have fun tonight,” I added to his confused friends as my hands still rested in his. He gave my hands one last squeeze, and then they all left together.

I could feel my coworkers watching my back as I walked back down the hallway to flip the massage room for the next appointment. One of my coworkers followed me and asked, “What in the world was that all about?” But there was no way to explain what had just happened. No words ever do justice to the kind of connection that accidentally sneaks up on two strangers in those rare moments when two souls tiptoe to the surface and reach out to mingle together for a time. Some people call them God moments, others a spiritual experience. I don’t feel the need to give a name to it--it’s beautiful and it’s humanity at its boldest and purest and most present, something our world and our country could definitely use more of right now.

And every year on this day, Veterans Day, I remember Ryan. I never saw him or talked to him again after that day. I don’t know his last name or if he is even still alive. I hope he is. I hope his life is so much better than it was then. I hope his life is filled with love and wonder and beauty every single day. But I suspect it has been filled with struggle, more struggle than anyone deserves.

In my limited experiences with veterans who have served overseas, it seems that none of them every FULLY come back. Part of them stays behind there. Or maybe it comes back with them, but it so fundamentally changes them that they are just never quite the same. This is not always a bad change--some are more grown up, more worldly, more quiet, more mature. But all of them come back changed in ways the rest of us will never understand. And some of them don’t come back at all.

And on Veterans Day, people post patriotic memes with sayings like, “If you love your freedom, thank a vet.” And people wave flags and hold ceremonies and sing “God bless America,” and leave extra flowers on graves. That’s all fine and good. I have no problem with any of that. I certainly appreciate what our loved ones who serve in our Armed Forces (and their families) are sacrificing and giving of themselves. And I certainly appreciate the veterans who came before us and gave us the lives we all live today. But is there really a thank you sufficient for what they do?

I thanked Ryan for his service to our country that day, and it felt so small and inadequate. And ever since that day, any time I have thought of Ryan, I have prayed for him--for his health, for his recovery--nothing drastic or fancy--just a quick prayer, a thank you that his path and mine crossed that day, for the little miracle of humanity that was gifted to both of us on that November afternoon, before we went our own separate ways.

Happy Veterans Day, to all of our veterans, and especially to Ryan, wherever you are.