"Twilight of the Idols"... a personal interpretation

Blood runs thick.

I opened the ski season this past weekend with my Uncle. There were only two runs open with one lift, but the conditions were great all things considered. The sun was out, the temperature clung to zero, and the snow was a nice, thick powder. My uncle and I got separated for a couple of runs, which I wasn’t too worried about. In such a small area, we were bound to find each other again, and as a last resort we had a plan to meet for lunch at 1:00. It didn’t work out that way. After a few runs without seeing my uncle, I opted to wait at the bottom of the hill for 5-10 minutes, thinking it would give him time to finish a complete run if he were on the lift at that exact minute. After about ten minutes of waiting, a skier was brought down to the first aid station on a sled. I watched the hustle and bustle from a distance for awhile. The fallen skier’s green jacket worried me, as my uncle had been wearing a green jacket, but I talked myself out of it several times… the guy’s a strong skier, and I can’t remember ever having seen him fall in my life. He was faster than me, stronger than me, more controlled on the hills than I was. The hills we were on were child’s play for a man planning to ski in Europe for three months this winter. I watched for what felt like a really long time, trying hard not to stare at the fallen skier on the sled (I don’t want to be taken as rude), trying to convince myself that the man wasn’t wearing glasses under the red ski goggles, trying to convince myself it was a terrible coincidence, and then every so often looking up at the hill, hoping to see my uncle skiing over to the lift. I didn’t want to just go up to the sled and look. If it wasn’t my uncle, some poor guy might be even more embarrassed at his ill fortune, having become a spectacle. When the ski patrol brought the fallen skier’s skis down and planted them in the snow, there was no more fooling myself and I approached the first aid station, nervous about what I would find. I found my uncle with what turned out to be a compound fracture in his leg. No drama, no missteps, the binding on his ski broke off, he lost his ski, he felt something inside his boot, thought “That’s interesting”, and fell. Once we got to the hospital and the boot came off, he was asked about how much pain he felt on a scale of one to ten, and he answered three, maybe four. He mused that he always thought a broken bone would hurt a lot more. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing. It’s such a shame it wears off eventually.

Bones heal, and everything will be fine in the end. I could tell all about the nurses’ ski injury pool, the nurses’ congratulations for the surprising magnitude of the fracture, the orthopedic surgeon with the sharp Scottish accent and my family’s sense of humour… but this is not a news report or a gossip column. As much as I seem to find in the situation that amuses me, this was a wakeup call like no other. In my mind, the day was never supposed to come where I’m driving my elders to the hospital with ski injuries. These things were never supposed to happen. As much as what actually happened out there on the hill was not a reflection of waning ability on my uncle’s part, I realized that I was instantly being launched into a new realm… the generations have passed over, and we, my cousins, my brothers and I, need to prepare ourselves for a new family dynamic, a new set of responsibilities. As much as I know my father and (in time) my uncle will always tell us to depend on them in a time of crisis, we’re reaching the point where we need to be able to ‘take care of things’, to take charge of situations. We need to be able to return the favour, and to let our elders depend on us on the same token. Beyond honour, obligation, filial duty… I’d be lying to deny that it’s scary. Our heroes are becoming human.