So I'm sitting at the bar at a restaurant called the Granary, having an island salad for lunch. And I hear someone saying, "Um, Sir, can you please help us?"

I look up, and see that the woman who said it is looking directly at me, with some disdain in her eyes. Then I look closer and I see she is standing over an elderly man, who is lying on the ground, his chair tipped over next to him.

So engrossed I was in my book (John Green's Looking for Alaska, my fourth reading) that I hadn't heard or seen this man fall out of his chair. As the biggest guy in the restaurant, it was only natural to expect me to help lift him back up. And as soon as I came out of my reading trance, that's what I did.

The man was lying there in this strange position, sort of on his left arm, his legs splayed sort of behind him. I knelt down, said something to re-assure him, picked up his chair, got the bartender's attention, and we worked out a plan to get the man back up in his seat while someone called 9-1-1.

People are heavy! I swear it took everything we both had to lift the guy up. He may have been 230 or so, not sure. But it was limp weight, just all given up to gravity. And once we got him up, he nearly fell right back over. I had to stand at his side and lean into him to keep him up.

The ambulance soon came, and they took care of things, strapped him onto a gurney and took him to the hospital. I sure hope he's okay. My prayers are with him and his family.

I felt really weird after. I guess I was thinking about the cycles of life, and how there may come a day when I fall out of a chair, or a loved one does. Watching the man's wife stand helplessly by really impacted me, too. I know we're supposed to think about these things once in a while, and then forget so that we can live without fear, and at the same time, live like every day is our last. It's exhausting, if you think about it.

I just wanted to go home and get in a bathtub for some reason. I just wanted to feel enveloped in something warm, and sustaining, and not be sitting in a chair, where gravity could pull a trick on me if I stop paying attention.