A story of an American life

*This story contains embedded links to articles and documents that support, illuminate or describe in real life, the circumstances faced by the fictional characters in this story. I recommend reading the story in its entirety first, then scanning through it a second time, clicking on the links to gain a deeper understanding of the harsh realities behind this account of a man, his wife and their American life.

Norman shuffled back to the bedroom, steaming black coffee in hand. A glimmer of faltering winter sun wrestled through the curtains, illuminating the dust stirred by Norman’s steps with its shaky tendrils of early morning light.

The days were shorter now, the deepness of winter fully in control. Ordinarily, Norman paid attention to such things, being a naturally curious man, always learning, always wanting to know how things worked.  But lately, truly little captured his interest, in fact, not much of anything mattered to Norman these days.

Today though, Norman would break with that pattern.  This day would be quite different. He had someplace to be, and nothing would keep him from it.

As he moved through his morning ritual, his mind drifted back to brighter days, when he was younger, the house was newer, and filled with sounds of family and friends. As the customary family gathering spot for holidays and special occasions, Norman’s house was usually a hive of activity.  Thanksgiving meant two turkeys; Christmas, both a turkey and a ham, and even then, there were scant leftovers after the feast. 

This morning however, the house only creaked and popped, noisily protesting the cold wind pressing hard against it. Norman understood its hollowness. He keenly felt the inexpressible groaning of a family home bereft of family. He and the house shouldered that burden together.

In the late 1970s, Norman was a newlywed beginning a career that would provide well for his family over the coming decades. As a family, they lived within their means, his wife Shirley, staying home with the kids. Together, they built their edition of an American life.

Norman dressed, moving slowly and deliberately, as if each motion were freighted with a meaning known only to him. He had a routine, and he followed it; one of the few parts of his life over which he still had control. 

He would wear his tailored blue suit today. Such an expensive piece of clothing was an uncommon extravagance for a man who bought all his other clothes “off the rack,” but this suit was a luxury his wife had insisted on, even choosing the fabric and color herself, beaming as the tailor marked the fabric to a perfect fit.

She had it made for Norman to wear to his retirement dinner, unaware at the time, that Norman would refuse to attend.

Unlike the end of career send-offs that came before his, this party would be held for Norman AND nearly a hundred others - all sent to pasture early in a dramatic downsizing reluctantly embraced by Norman’s employer, in the hopes of staying afloat amid a growing flood of fresh taxes, fees and regulations.

The new Democrat administration had botched the coronavirus response, choosing to jettison the work of the previous administration for fear Trump might be given credit.  Their hubris, combined with incompetent, tone-deaf policy-making, led inexorably to shrinking credit markets and a badly stumbling economy. 

Reimplementing the worst aspects of ObamaCare had sent health insurance costs soaring higher than ever before, with deductibles setting new records of their own.  Added to that burden, were outrageous environmental regulations, enacted to signal virtue rather than deliver tangible ecological benefit.  The cost of raw materials skyrocketed.

Each stroke of Biden’s pen fell like a concrete block on the backs of men like Norman, until they could no longer stand.  One by one, the men who built America were crushed under the weight of those who offered nothing, beyond an insatiable sense of entitlement, and a reliably left-wing vote. 

Norman hadn't dressed up since Shirley's funeral, and decided on his bright red tie for today.  She had always liked it, telling him “it brings out the ginger in your hair.” 

Norman would jokingly reply, “Given how quick I’m losing it, I should start looking for a flesh colored one.” 

Finishing his coffee, Norman threw a final glance at the mirror, nearly catching a glimpse of the man he once was.  He stared for a moment, before turning away abruptly.  That man had died with Shirley.  

Norman donned his overcoat, shut off the lights and walked out the door, his mind clouded over with memories of the profound frustration that marred his wife’s final weeks of life.

Nearly a month had passed since Shirley's admission to the hospital. The doctor suspected a transient ischemic attack, sometimes called a mini-stroke - but without the benefit of an MRI, he admitted it was only a guess.

Health care guidelines re-imposed by the Biden administration required a course of drug treatment and physical therapy before incurring the cost of an MRI scan. Despite having already been hospitalized for more than three weeks, Shirley still had weeks more to wait before her first therapy appointment.

Norman was understandably angry at the delay, but the point was moot. The next available MRI appointment was more than four months away. The government’s refusal to pay for scans outside their single-payer system had resulted in the once-plentiful private scan clinics going out of business.  While demand for scans remained high, the supply of machines did not.

The following weeks would see Norman at his wife's side, watching in helpless rage as more and more of his sweet Shirley was callously wrenched from him at the whim of a nameless illness.  

In the end, Norman lost his wife to something that, at the time of her death, was still undiagnosed, but, as he would learn from the autopsy, was a treatable condition, if caught in time.

Because the shift to single-payer health care had ushered in a tick box, formulaic bureaucracy that smothered the practice of medicine, in the name of more “efficient allocation of resources,” time was the one commodity Norman and Shirley weren’t permitted.

Norman entered the park, near the aging playground. The howling tempest probed around the collar of his coat, slipping icy fingers past the worn fabric. Instinctively, Norman pulled the coat tighter around him, but the snow still found its way inside, collecting in the little folds of cloth between coat, tie, and Norman's shirt.

A swing set loomed ahead, barely visible through the whirling snow, rusted and bent, like the neighborhood it once served. The wind, bored with sweeping through leafless trees, now rushed past Norman's face, making it difficult to draw his breath.

Just ahead, in the center of the park, sat a row of three benches. Norman sat stiffly on the closest one – it had been he and Shirley’s usual perch. The old man shivered against the storm's chill, and his mind again drifted back.

An earnest-looking young woman knocked softly on the door. She informed Norman that she was there to initiate paperwork for his wife’s palliative care. Resources were scarce, and decisions had been made regarding the best use of limited funds.

Shirley, with her now-diminished function and no real social usefulness, would not qualify for further expense, save for making her comfortable as her life ebbed away.

She would receive sedation, but no further medical interventions, and no nutrition, as calorie intake only served to prolong life when the opposite was the outcome desired.  Of course, Norman argued the decision, spending hours on the phone with faceless bureaucrats in a desperate bid to make them save his wife.  

He was in the office of one such clerk, making his case, while the disinterested functionary habitually checked his phone, when unbeknownst to Norman, his wife of more than fifty years slipped into eternity.

Norman learned of this when he returned to the now empty room, the sight of it landing like a blow. His heart was breaking, his eyes welling with tears as he looked at the lonely, bare mattress, stripped of its bedclothes, a naked testament to the absence of its occupant.

He leaned against the doorframe, sobbing, shaking with grief and fury as he imagined Shirley calling for him in her final moments, wondering why her Norman would let her leave this life terrified, and alone.

The nurse said something about personal belongings, but Norman heard nothing. He was elsewhere, in that place where people go who have lost the most precious treasure of their heart - a place defined not by what’s there, but rather what is missing.

The wind no longer stung Norman's cheeks. The feeling had receded from his face, rudely displaced by the indifferent cold. The snow fell in large flakes, sometimes dancing in the air before him as the winter blast swirled through the park. Shy, tentative rays of sunlight gamely broke through the gloom, occasionally setting the crystalline shapes glistening.

Norman’s head began to droop. He watched with bemusement as the falling snow built long, delicate mounds down the length of his thighs. He also noticed the deepening drifts collecting around his feet, nearly ankle-high now...his heart sounded so loud, yet his breathing had slowed dramatically. The puffs of breath, once visible in the bitterly cold air, had retired to tender wisps, disappearing instantly in the cold morning storm.

It was still early, not yet seven o'clock on this Sunday morning. Save the sound of the wind, it was ethereally quiet. Norman knew the neighborhood would slumber for at least another hour or more. He also knew he wouldn't need nearly that long.

Norman and Shirley had saved for a comfortable retirement - allowing for a little travel now and then, should the mood strike them - but his forced departure from the workforce had left an unexpected hole in their budget.

He was forced to file early for Social Security, forever reducing the amount he would receive.  Money earmarked for retirement had to be diverted to the monthly budget to offset the sharp, unplanned reduction in Norman's income. The faltering economy had made jobs scarce for everyone, and nearly impossible to find for a man of Norman’s age.

State and local governments thirsted for revenue. Having absorbed a multitude of unfunded mandates from federal legislation, they reflexively raised property and sales taxes enormously to bridge the gap. His finances in turmoil, and his attention focused on Shirley, Norman missed the notices for the higher payments, and the bill against his house steadily grew.

Congress, desperately seeking money to fund their new health care commitments and radical social and environmental initiatives, began raiding retirement accounts with confiscatory taxes.

Shirley's illness had devastated Norman’s finances. Even so, the few remaining assets he possessed, the government felt should be "re-allocated" to pay Shirley's bills.  

Despite being essentially unemployed, the government considered him "retired," since he had filed for Social Security, and asserted a claim against his net worth, with government insurance taking care of the remainder owing, if Norman’s savings were not enough to pay in full.  Another consequence of health care restructuring.  

Norman appealed the bureaucrats’ interpretation of his circumstances, citing his job loss, and the necessity of drawing down their life’s savings just to make ends meet.  His pleadings fell on deaf ears. 

The sheriff had delivered a "notice of sale for unpaid property taxes" on their home less than a week ago.  Two days after that, Norman was told his appeal had been denied, and his remaining assets would be seized to pay for Shirley's care.  

The entire sum of a life's work, taken to feed a gorging government addicted to making promises they couldn’t pay for.  Between Shirley's death, and the government’s “assistance,” Norman found himself adrift in a life he no longer recognized.

The snowflakes were sticking to Norman’s eyelashes, refusing to fall as he tried to blink them away. His heartbeat had grown quite faint, or perhaps he was just unable to hear it.

He spent a few minutes pondering which one it was before deciding it didn't matter anyway. His blood was moving sluggishly now, as if no longer concerned with making its way back to a broken heart.

Through the icy lace forming over his frozen eyes, Norman thought he glimpsed his neighborhood as it once was: a place where peeling paint would be quickly banished with a fresh coat, and lawns were a point of particular pride, manicured and green. As he cast his weakening gaze across the crumbling, neglected streetscape, remembered a place where a man could settle down, raise a family, and enjoy the fruits of his labors, but saw only urban decay, neglected homes and graffiti-laden buildings and vandalized street signs.

He felt excrutiating pain over all he had lost...what we ALL had lost...before silently slumping over, on a lonely bench in a forgotten park, mercifully rejoining his beloved Shirley in a place where his troubles couldn’t follow.