A South Minneapolis Spirit

 I believe in spirits..

I believe in an invisible spirit realm both good and evil that hover over us here on earth. Sometimes those spirits take on forms to carry out certain missions here on earth. Sometimes they take the form of animals..snakes and dogs come to mind but there could be others. At other times they take on human form.

I believe I was visited by such a spirit a few years ago and that spirit saved my life.

Let me tell you the story.

In what seems like a lifetime ago now I went through a period where I wasnt feeling well. I was dealing with dizzy spells feeling feverish and shortness of breath. I’ve never been one to get sick often, in fact with the job I had at the time I’d often add my alloted sick days to my vacation days in order to enjoy a longer vacation. While it wasnt fun I believed sooner or later this feeling would pass. Weeks went by and the feeling didnt pass.

I was working at a small retail shop in South Minneapolis. The shop was located on Lake St. Lake Street is one of Minneapolis' major throughfares stretching from lakes Bde Maka Ska and Lake of the Isles eastward to the Mississippi River. The Lake Street Bridge then crosses over to the other Twin City and where it becomes Marshall Avenue. Where the shop was located was on the East Side of Lake Street and just 3 blocks from the 3rd Police Preciect that burned during the George Floyd riots. 

 The holiday season was approaching. Besides the usual stress that comes with working retail during the holiday season there was added stress for in the years I had worked at this store people got fired shortly after the holiday season ended and at a small retail shop as this was one could make reasonable assumptions as to who might be on the chopping block after the holidays. This year I had reason to believe this was the year I would be on the chopping block.

One thing this company did provide was decent health insurance for its workers. For years I’ve had a deep distrust of doctors and the entire medical industry.I’ve never been one to make a doctor’s visit unless I felt I had to but this sick feeling wasnt going away and with the sense I would not be employed for much longer I took part of the day off and made a visit to the health clinic in my old West Bank Minneapolis neighborhood.

The West Bank neighborhood of Minneapolis was where hippies punks and bohemian artists of all stripes would live work and gather. It was one of Bob Dylan's stomping grounds in Minneapolis before he left for New York. It wasnt uncommon for me to run into and share a beer with one of Dylan's early mentors Spider John Koerner at Palmers Bar which was like a West Bank community center. It is now primarily a home for Somali immigrants

The visit seemed pretty typical of a doctor’s visit..the nurse checked my weight heartbeat blood pressure gave me a blood draw then I was on my way back to work. No one said anything to me so despite the fact that I was feeling like shit I assumed nothing was wrong and sooner or later this feeling would indeed go away.

I was glad that when I returned things were slow in retail. We went through long stretches that afternoon where we had no customers. I’d use those periods to lay my head on the desk.

Closing time at this retail store was late afternoon and it was perfectly okay that if there were no customers I could do my usual closing duties ten minutes before close and be out the door the moment the store closed. This was fine with me as a bus heading home would usually arrive within minutes of my departure from work.

There were no customers and I was about to start my closing duties with 10 minutes before close when a customer walked in. She was an older looking woman who merely nodded when I told her we’d be closing shortly. She slowly and quietly began to browse through the aisles. She didnt seem particularly interested in anything and she simply nodded again when I asked if there was anything I could help her with.

10 minutes..5 minutes..2 minutes and it was time to start turning the lights off. Even when I began to turn the lights off this woman was slow to leave. Finally she did and did not buy anything. She never said a word the entire time she was in the store. I hurried to finish my closing duties.

I used to play a game when I’d see my bus approaching and I was away from the bus stop. I would transform into one of baseball’s base stealing giants. I’d call myself Maury Wills or Vince Coleman and the oncoming bus would be the catcher trying to throw me out. 9 out of 10 times I’d steal the base and reach the bus stop in plenty of time. I left the store in time to see my bus approaching but there was no Maury Wills in me this afternoon. I was not feeling well at all. I missed the bus

30 degrees above zero  is cold but not that cold by Minnesota standards, Under normal circumstances I’d have no problem waiting another 15-20 minutes for another bus however on this day 30 degrees felt like -30 and I just wasnt up for waiting for the next bus 

 I called my buddy Mitch told him I wasnt feeling well and asked if he could drive me to my apartment in St Paul. Mitch instructed me to wait for him inside the nearby McDonald’s and he’d be there in 10 minutes. I wasnt in Mitch’s truck more than a minute or two and we hadnt left the parking lot at McDonald’s when I received a phone call. It was from the clinic. I was informed that my blood counts were dangerously low and to head to the hospital immediately for a blood transfusion. I remained in the hospital for 4 days.

I could overhear nurses talking outside my hospital room.

“He WALKED into the emergency room?” “How did he do that?”

I discovered I had Stage 4 Non Hodgkins Lymphoma located in my bone marrow.

I have since recovered and have been cancer free for 8 years now.

I later learned that my blood counts were so low chances are if I had not been delayed in my closing duties and had caught the bus to my St Paul apartment I was likely to have had a heart attack or stroke that evening and I wouldn’t be here now telling the story.

That spirit saved me from a certain death. Today I believe thousands of spirits are hovering over Minneapolis defending a beautiful city against a cancer that would try and destroy it