Ch.1 The Perfect Storm
Once upon a time there was a thirty year old man named John. John was a quiet sort of guy who loved history and hiking. By age thirty he felt behind the curve in his life. He was unmarried, no children, no career, and had been struggling with depression after the passing of his mother a few years before. He had never met his father, though his mother told him he had died “during the war” with no idea which war.
John’s mother had battled breast cancer, he nursing her at home until her death. He had to drop out of law school to take care of her, ending up working as a clerk at a Quickimart. He was raised Catholic but fell away from the Church during college. His one consolation was his relationship with Brandy, his girlfriend/fiancé. He couldn’t believe she was his girlfriend as she was slender and very pretty and he was about seventy-pounds overweight. But they had a genuine love connection, or so he thought. After John’s mother died, they moved in together.
But John always had this nebulous feeling Brandy didn’t really like or respect him. She often made critical comments against him, several times calling him a “loser” for quitting law school to work in a convenience store. He quit to care for his dying mother, but deep dish that didn’t matter to her. One day he came home and found her, let’s just say, cheating on him. Instead of breaking it off, he tried to get them to go to a counselor, which she laughed off. More betrayals would happen, followed by fights. Several times he got rather angry, plus unlike Brandy he basically let his weight go.
A perfect storm of misfortune was looming on the horizon. He couldn’t afford Quickimart’s health insurance plan, or rather he couldn’t budget his money wisely for it since he had a bad habit of over-ordering Doordash. One evening after getting back from frisbee golf with a friend, he noticed an insect bite on his thigh. The next day he started manifesting symptoms: fatigue, muscle pain, nerve pain, tremors, GI symptoms, balance issues, etc.
Two trips to the emergency room only ruled out a heart attack or stroke, which he knew he didn’t have. His girlfriend kept criticizing and fighting with him for not having health insurance. Deep down she was also afraid he had a major illness but that she would be stuck taking care of him medically and financially. Also deep down she resented him for his socio-economic status with no immediate plans or efforts for upward mobility.
For him he was still grieving the loss of his mother, recovering from a period of depression from the years taking care of her after leaving law school, and trying to figure out his next step. He was thinking to either to go back to law school or teach history. For her teaching didn’t pay enough and deep down she was trying to pressure him to go back to law school despite his main interest, under the condition that she would only stay with him if he did, while never admitting this out loud to him.
After three weeks of near misery forcing himself to go to work, many days missing work, they finally fired him. The perfect storm had hit and was only about to get worse.
One day John left the apartment for a few hours only to return to find his fiance had left him. On the dining room table she left a note that said one word: “loser.” Checking her closet, all her clothes were gone. The landlord knocked on the door to remind him the next day he would be evicted for not paying rent. He said he thought his fiancé was paying the rent, and the landlord replied “Nope. She paid me nothing You’re out of luck my friend” in a sarcastic enough tone he knew the landlord didn’t care about his situation. Evictions happen every day including from people genuinely finding themselves in a financial crisis unable to pay.
So John left in anger and went down to the corner to try and buy some marijuana from a dealer. He had only $20 left to his name. Growing up he never used drugs, but in college he fell into a bad crowd and turned to pot to deal with the stress of school plus his mother fighting breast cancer. Under extreme stress, he would still smoke pot on occasion, which was bad for his health, plus it often gets people in trouble as we are about to see.
John paces back and forth in front of the taco stand waiting for Hector, when he appears around the corner with two members of his gang. John deep down is in a state of shock, despair, and rage, and starts arguing with Hector about the price of a joint. Hector gets defensive and pushes John a little, who swings at Hector missing, suddenly using a racial slur which he himself rarely used, surprised in that moment he used it.
He really doesn’t know how to fight plus he’s very weak and in a lot of pain. Within a few weeks his whole life had literally crashed down on top of him. He had no siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles grandparents, or good close friends he could lean on. Even his friend Tanner was little more than a fair weather friend. He was at the end of his rope.
And then Hector and his gang beat up John to the point of unconsciousness. John blacked out and would remain, or I should say be kept unconscious for two days.
Ch.2 Survival.
John woke up two days later with an aching headache, all the sane symptoms, and heard the sound of wild animals. He was laying on the ground and it felt rocky. As he opened his eyes, he was shocked to see a scene that looked like a jungle. In all directions were jingle-like trees and vines, and wild bushes, thickly growing throughout the jungle. He could hear what sounded like a small river.
As he sat up, thoughts raced through his head. Where was he? Why was he there? Who put him there? He put two and two together and guessed that gang had drugged and kidnapped him and as a sick joke had him flown to Central or South America and dropped in the jungle. What he did not know was that he was inserted deeply into the jungle in Guatemala, about thirty miles upstream from the nearest settlement, a small primitive village inhabited by a local tribe.
As he thought more, it all hit him. Having to leave law school, his mother’s extreme condition, her death, his depression, fiancé cheating on him, sudden serious health condition, loss of job, loss of fiancé, and then loss of home. A perfect storm. And last but not least his fight with the gang resulting in being drugged, kidnapped, and now abandoned in the wild jungle, in a foreign county, to die.
John broke down. He hung his head and remembered doing so in prayer as a child. So he prayed to God saying he was sorry for all his mistakes in life, begging God to help him survive and find civilization. As he wiped his eyes, and feeling a sensation of peace, John was able to collect his thoughts enough to visualize the future. On one hand, he visualized himself starving to death in that jingle. But on the other hand, he envisioned himself somehow walking out of that jungle, getting back to the US, recovering from whatever illness he has, getting stable work and housing, and eventually becoming a teacher, marrying, and having kids, which he always had wanted.
He thought next about how to survive recalling what he learned from Boy Scouts survival merit badge, and watching survival shows on TV. He knew to a) find fresh clean water, b) food, c) shelter, d) craft some kind of self defense, e) stay well hydrated, and f) follow a water way down stream until eventually finding other people.
But first he would need to make a few tools. Fortunately, those gang members had missed taking the Swiss Army knife from his pocket, which included attachments such as a tiny saw, compass, and a fire starter, a piece of flint when struck by the blade makes sparks. So with a renewed desire to live and make the best of his one life, he set out and made a hiking stick/spear, hallowed bowls made out of coconut shells for boiling water, a portable fish trap, and pouch worn around his shoulders to hold his tools. This all took a few hours, but first he made a fire and boiled a total of about a gallon of water he drank, knowing he was severely dehydrated. He then passed out in exhaustion for a long nap.
When John woke up, from the position of the sun in the sky, it seemed maybe 3 pm. Estimating sunset within the jungle to be around 5, he decided to set the fish trap, grow the fire, and build a quick bamboo platform up in a tree for sleeping, for better protection at night from deadly snakes, spiders, and predators like mountain lions. He was able to catch one small fish which relieved some of his hunger enough to sleep.
The village to the south would ordinarily take a healthy man 2-3 days to reach. For John, in his condition, it would take him 10 grueling days of fatigue and frequent near exhaustion requiring frequent rest breaks. During these breaks he’d pray the rosary for strength, which he could still remember, but also lay against a rock and have conversations with his deceased mother. There were moments he thought she was still alive from the delirium. He’d slowly walk down the embankment of the small river. Walk for tents minutes, rest for twenty minutes, and so on. It was thirty miles downstream to that village, but he had no idea how far to civilization, For all he knew it was a hundred miles.
His pain and fatigue was at times excruciating. There were moments of delirium and feelings of no natural, material hope of success. But he kept going. By the tenth day he had lost 30 pounds, and all of a sudden he saw the smoke from fires in that tiny village. Small children saw him first, and then ran to get their elders. By now John could barely walk.
Ch. 3. The Village.
The village was about fifty people living in ten bamboo huts arranged in a circle. In the middle was a smaller circular fenced area holding the goats, and an area for cooking and dancing. John would end up spending about a month in this community. The people couldn’t speak English, but they were fun loving and caring people, and during that month they greatly helped him heal.
On one side of the circle was the hut of the chief; on the other side was the hut of the medicine man/spiritual leader. After the tribe discovered him stumbling down the banks of the river so exhausted he was in danger of death, giving him several coconut’s worth of coconut water, a great source of potassium, they brought him to the medicine man. He prescribed John a diet of coconut water, sweet potatoes, and generous amounts of goat meat. After a couple hours of pantomimes and gestures, despite the language barrier, John was able to explain that he was an American, kidnapped, and somehow brought to the jungle to die. They celebrated figuring out what was going on with him with a couple drinks of coconut wine. And then John crashed on a bed in one of the huts and slept for two days straight.
One evening he woke up to the sound of singing and dancing, and looked out the door to see what looked like a celebration. The village had roasted a goat rotisserie style over the coals. He was brought near the fire and given coconut water, sweet potatoes, and copious amounts of roasted goat meat.
John spent most of his days quietly observing the village activities from a distance, having playful exchanges with the children, and taking short walks near the river to rebuild his strength and reflect. Good nutritious food, walks, long sleeping, and most importantly being in s positive supportive environment, helped him heal.
Ch. 3 Full Recovery
One day an American group of Pentecostal missionaries was passing through, and volunteered to bring John to the nearest town hospital, where John progressed in his recovery. The doctor was only able to order a few tests to rule out tropical illness, yet the pains and fatigue persisted. The American embassy was contacted, and before he knew it John was back in the US in an inpatient rehab hospital for a few months, approved for emergency Medicaid, receiving physical, occupational, and speech therapy, as well as counseling. Neurological and all other serious diseases were ruled out. His diagnosis was psychosomatic illness brought on by a configuration of several extremely stressful events in his life. His prognosis, given his level of self-awareness, neuroplasticity (ability of brain to create new pathways and heal), and commitment, was very good.
Next John went to live in a kind of half-way house, working part-time, regaining his strength, and continuing to heal. Gradually his pains would subside and fade away permanently. He was tempted to reconnect with his fiance, until his counselor helped him forgive her for precipitating a crisis from hell and realize he was worth more, that he could find an honorable, loving, honest woman.
Long story short, five years later John was in excellent health, married to a humble, devout Catholic woman named Hope, with two children, teaching history. Together they had discovered the Traditional Latin Mass. On weekends he took his dog hiking along a nearby river bank, and always took a rest stop to remember and give thanks for that jungle tribe that saved his life. He often visited his mother’s grave, prayed daily for past enemies, and was planning a trip back to Guatamala to visit his “second family.”
Conclusion:
In part due to his own mistakes, and in part due to raw misfortune, John nearly died. But he turned to God, to his Faith, to kind, helping people, and not only survived, but got back on track for God’s plan over his life. No matter what happens in your life, no matter how bad or dark, never ever give up. Ever. Believe in God’s plan for your life. Take account of your mistakes and overcome them. Focus on the good, true, and beautiful. Persevere. As Scripture says “Do not let evil overcome good, but instead let the good overcome evil.” Thanks be to God.