Reflections of Hope
My mom and dad came to visit me this weekend. Mary was taking a break with some other girls and enjoying a two night escape from harsh reality. It is so awful that those words are always paired together "escape from reality" but it is so true. Even the super rich that have everything want to escape from reality to relax and take it easy with not worries. Even though Mary went I don't think her escape was complete as concern for your spouse in distress is a heavy bag to tote.
The good thing is that I got to start back on my Adderall after a few days hiatus from being off of it. It causes some side effects that are hard to live with after I take it for about two months or so. My doctor may switch me to Vivance to see if it helps so we shall se. So anyway, for the first two days, I had a little energy. The problem was my parents were beat. My poor dad is 83 and an end-stage diabetic. He is one shuffled step away from passing away. So he sleeps most of the time in his chair. But at least he stays in the chair all day to be physically present instead of a depressing bed. My mom has to take care of him, my grandmother in Jesup and also my brother as well. Her health has been having problems recently as well so she was beat. So my parents were present but it left me with little help. I felt bad asking for anything from my mom because I felt she needed a break. So I let her relax. But I knew after two days of doing something like this that at some point my body was going to crash.
Sunday was hard but Mary came home and it really helped me out. For two days, I felt the load that she normally carries and it made my body ache, rattle and tremble. When she came home we enjoyed our time together with her now home and my folks it seemed like there was more life in the room. But that is Mary. When Mary enters the room, so enters life and the presence of warmth and security and there is no darkness left, only light. She would make a great doctor or nurse because she would instantly ease the patient with her calm and warm demeanor. Sunday was good.
Monday morning, my body was frozen in pain. I knew my parents were leaving and I needed to get up to help them out. But every move was like lifting an arm or leg with a coat of painted pain that covered a pain inside that was just indescribable. So I lay there so sad that they were leaving and I couldn't even get out of bed to say goodbye. My mom came in the door and lay down on my side to hug me gently and tearfully. Meanwhile, I lifted my head to see my dad as he was passing through. I could hear mom in the background, "William, just go to the door and say goodbye ok". She said that because he can barely walk with his walker and it isn't easy to get in our room with a walker because of this table right outside the door. Cool table, great design, but passage made only for those upright walking. I lifted my head and say bye to dad and thought that would be the end of it.
The next thing I hear is my mom trying to stop my dad. "William!" she said with a raised voice. "Don't go through there you're going to fall!" I raised my head again and saw my dad. He had maneuvered himself through the doorway and had restored his walker in front of him. He was coming to me. I raised my head and it hurt so badly. But I felt like I was in a movie. Watching a man who just a few months ago had given up his will to live, using everything he had to get to me. Mom gave up trying to stop him and she just helped move some stuff out of the way so that his journey wouldn't end up in the hospital. He put his walker to the side and leaned down forward on the bed. I lifted up with all my might and hugged him tightly. He said, "Son, I love you. I will be praying for you". I said a very humble and tearful thank you and lay back down. I strained my eyes to watch my dad leave the room because the rush of pain wouldn't allow me to life my head.
After they left, I started thinking about the magnitude of what had just happened. It was my father, you know the one that would give anything and do anything to protect his children. He was the one that would fight through any illness and bounce back. This same man who now knows that any day is his day has now shown me a glimpse of that old fighting spirit. A shot of energy rolled through my veins and opened every pore on my body as if my body exhaled all the pain that I was in. My pain went away for several hours and I had a renewed infusion of that fighting spirit that my dad and my grandfather passed to me years ago.
Sometimes the moment we are in is too powerful, too overwhelming to dissect or to understand. But in reflection, we can learn so much from others and their actions and also our actions to others and to this world we are trying to capture in our minds. It is in these reflections that hope, understanding and change can happen. Once we understand and own the understanding then we must act on these things so that there can be reciprocity, encouragement and sometimes forgiveness given. It is in our reflections of hope that we live a better life than the life we used to. Because we now understand the moment, the power of the moment and what needs to happen to change things to make this world a better place. Don't plow the field without looking back at what you are doing to prepare for seeds to be planted and eventually a harvest of good things.