Old age. It will hit all of us, if we are lucky.
A new client the other day reminded me how rough getting older can be.
The gentleman whom I will call Ira is somewhere between 70 and death. He is very winded from climbing the one flight of stairs to my humble abode and needs to sit and breathe for a few minutes. According to the pre-massage interview, he gets a massage about once every two months. He prefers male masseurs since he doesn’t want any funny business that happens with some of those female Asian places. He also likes to be uncovered during the massage. He mentions a few sore spots from where he had fallen the week before. I tell him to undress and lay on the table face down as I wash my hands.
I return and he is lying on the table, there is a definite order now in the room that was not there before. It is the old man smell. The smell of a body decaying before it is dead. His feet and ankles are swollen. The skin on his body is saggy and loose and smells of decay. There are scabs in patches on various areas which I assume are from the fall that he had mentioned – on his shoulder blade and hip and later I will find them on his legs, feet and hands including a swollen finger that appears broken but not bandaged or splinted.
I check to make sure that he is comfortable and go to work. I ask him who he normally sees and he mentions a man named David at an address I am familiar with. I go to work with my massage cream. He likes a fairly firm pressure and I oblige. The skin is soaking in the massage cream as fast as I can apply it. My hands are feeling sticky and I realize that there is so much dead skin coming off his body that it is turning the massage cream into a paste on my hands. I have to clean my hands every 5 minutes or so.
I go to a place in my mind that will help me through this. I go into full empathy mode. I relate to the age of the man and his needs. I feel the wear of the years, the loneliness that comes from living longer than your loved ones. I give support and care. I send love and compassion. I think about how I might someday be in his place and about the kind of care and attention I would want.
I give a very caring and thorough and completely legit massage. Not even the slightest hint of anything sexual, I really don’t think I could of if I tried. He did not make any advances either; he was looking for a regular massage. Not that I have not had men on my table who were his age or older who did want a sexual massage, one gentleman drove 20 miles from his assisted living retirement home to come to me for a massage with release.
When I am finished, I get a warm wash cloth and wipe away the remaining dead skin and massage cream. I gently towel him dry. He looks very peaceful and happy. I am incredibly drained.
He compliments my work and pays the exact amount for a 90 minute session (I knew there would be no tip). I ask him why he was changing masseurs, he replies that his old masseur David whom he liked very much, sent a message that he has moved away from the area.
Now, I happen to know the Masseur David about whom he was speaking from the address he had given me earlier. David has not moved. David was passing this client on to the universe. David is a nice guy, I have exchanged massages with him and had several nice chats. However, I do understand completely what he has done. A client like Ira requires a ton of energy, stamina, and an ability to keep your lunch down when smelling death. None of this is easy. He will never tip. He will always come to you smelling of death and covered with dead skin. Hell, I have passed a client or two onto the universe as well. You see, they will come to you as regular as clock work until they die. It is the knowledge that they will be back time and again that makes it so much more difficult. If Ira came to me just this once, I can work through it like I did and feel good that I did something nice for an old man. However, he will now come back in that same state every 8 weeks or so (he could never afford once a month) with 8 weeks of dead skin and stank on him and expect the same level of care and work that you gave him that first time. As a professional, you suck it up and do it as long as you can but there comes a day when you just can’t face that particular Ira again. You don’t have the energy or the stomach for it anymore. You have to cut him loose. So, you make up a story of going out of business, new job, different hours, moving away… anything so your Ira will move on. It sounds terrible, but it’s true.
I will keep Ira as long as I can handle him, and then send him out to the universe, with a recommendation to one of my competitors who I know is compassionate enough to put up with him for awhile as well.
