Things That Are Seen

As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

 (2 Corinthians 4:18)

“Blind? I could be blind?” It wasn’t the news my parents and I expected to hear from the ophthalmologist at Wills’ Eye Hospital in Philadelphia. I was a freshman in college, studying to become a teacher. 

But my vision was not being cooperative. I’d worn glasses since I was six, but still  walked into walls and fell down steps. During Christmas break, I’d  backed my dad’s car into a telephone pole I just didn’t see.  

At all. 

At nineteen, I needed to change my perspective. I was diagnosed with Keratoconus, a rare disease of the corneas that could lead to distorted vision, double and triple images, and the need for transplants. Oh, and the possibility of blindness.

Have you ever been faced with news that made you rethink the path you were on?

That made you question the way you viewed your life and the world around you?

That made you wary of what your eyes told you?

In the more than forty years since that diagnosis, I’ve learned that I do not always see things for what they are, but I can always trust God for who  he is. My own corneas were temporary, but donor corneas have allowed me to have sufficient vision to teach. 

I’ve managed to find the humor in my distorted view of the world that is, like my corneas, transient. A gray sweatshirt may look like a cat, a leaf may resemble a mouse, and a mailbox may appear as the image of a man. I keep my eyes on God, who looks not on our outward appearance, but into our hearts. 

Is there something temporary in your life that is obscuring your vision of the eternal God?

Trust him to make your own focus clear. 

 

Ring: A Decision

Ring-a small band, usually of precious metal, worn on a finger and often a symbol of love

Its weight is slight, almost insignificant as it rests in the palm of my hand, but its strength has been enduring. I recall the smooth feel of it when Ron slipped it on my finger oh, so, many years ago, at the beginning of its journey.

We have arrived at the end.

I consider the circle of silver carefully, marveling at the births and vacations and graduations and marriages it has seen, the injuries and surgeries and hospitalizations that might have dulled its shine but didn’t.

Not even death.

I pick up the square black velvet box from my dresser and open it slowly. Inside is the mate to the ring in my hand, larger and bulkier, the ring Ron’s painfully swollen finger could not endure for the last 18 months of his life.

“I’m keeping your ring,” I whispered to him on that final day. “I’ll keep it safe because you are still my husband.”

The two rings lay side by side on my palm now: the smaller one strong enough to bear the weight of care-giving and loss, the larger one strong enough to bear the weight of pain and sorrow.

A tear slides down my cheek. I am making a decision today, but it is not irrevocable. This small unbroken ring of silver has encircled my finger for the last 20 months while Ron’s has slumbered in the black box.

I can put it back on if I need it.

Tenderly, I slip the two rings—together—into the square box and close the lid quietly, whispering another promise.

“I am no less committed to you now than on the day these rings were new.”

For a moment, I feel the ache of emptiness on my finger, the pain of loss that is always in my heart. I take a deep breath and pick up another ring, also silver, with three small diamonds on its band, the ring Ron gave me on one of the last birthdays we had together.

Past. Present. Future.

Ron is now in my past and for the moment, I stand in the present alone while he waits in heaven, whole and healthy. But he is also in my future.

I will see him again.

I slip the band with the diamonds onto my hand and stow the box with the two silver wedding rings in my jewelry case.

Despite their small sizes, they endured.

We endured.

I endure.

A New Name

 "To them I will give a new name within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughter, I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever."  Isiah 56:5

I am wrung out with emotion. Today, eighteen months after my husband's death, I have moved our queen-size bed back into the spot beneath the double windows where it had been until the day he died. On that awful night, I'd shoved his side of the bed against the wall, piling pillows around it to fill the empty space. I slept on my side, facing away from the void. 

I am stronger now, I think. Ready to move the bed back. I have found a new life for myself and my autistic son; I have written sixteen chapters of a book I hope will impact the way people view autism and grief; I have dared to envision a life without Ron.

But after I move the bed back and rearrange the pillows, I collapse onto the bed and cry. I have moved into a life without my husband. The knowledge holds both joy and sorrow. When my tears are spent, I get up and look at the room we have shared for 44 years. It is my room now.

Maybe I'll paint it.

Evening comes. Allen and I eat and play a board game, a new routine in our life of two. We watch an Avengers movie while I knit. We talk easily of Ron, how he cheated at Monopoly and loved Iron Man, how his smile was slightly crooked and he yelled at the television set.  Allen's acceptance of Ron's death took time and patience. Ron is not forgotten. I think of the Egyptian proverb: You are not dead as long as someone remembers your name.

We remember.

I have said goodnight to my son; he gives me the rare hug he saves for bedtime and follows me into my room where he plops down on Ron's side of the bed.

"You moved it back."

"It was time," I say and he nods. He grabs a pillow from Ron's side and holds it to his face.

"It still smells a little like Dad."

"A little," I agree. I have washed the pillow and enveloped it in a new case, but sometimes I think I still detect Ron's lingering scent.

"Can I sleep with it tonight?"

I shrug. "I guess. Something wrong with your pillow?"

"No," he says. "I just sort of want to be close to Poppa tonight. I thought it would be nice to sleep with his pillow."

"Alright."

Happily, he gathers the pillow in his arm and squeezes it, then rises from the bed and walks towards the door.

"Allen," I say, "you've never called Dad 'Poppa' before. Why now?

He turns back to me, this man child who only knew an ill father. "Well, Mom," he says, "Dad has a new life now. He's not old and sick anymore because God gave him a new body and took him to Heaven." He grins. "And I thought Dad's new life deserved a new name."

An everlasting name.