From Michelle. 28 July, 2011.
Dear friends and family,
I have been trying to weave together a coherent whole out of the many disparate parts of the last six weeks with little success. Truthfully, we have bounced around both outwardly and inwardly, state to state, friend to friend, emotion to emotion, home to home. There are moments when I am able to hold it all, but frankly, I have been living a biblical truth out of necessity: do not worry about tomorrow for each day has enough trouble of its own.
Steve has, also out of necessity, departed from his strict regimen of exercise and stretching for the first time. The absence of regular maintenance and rest makes for creaky joints and tight muscles and slow progress. I sometimes imagine the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz, unable to move without Dorothy’s frequent administrations of oil. At times his movements are stiffer than I have seen in months: a rigidly awkward gait, his wave an unnatural curve of fingers that cannot flow and stretch, middle fingers always at half mast. His sensation remains obstinately absent, his nerves a confused tangle. The mundane, belabored tasks of moving – lifting boxes, shifting furniture – elude him. At other times, however, Steve manages some crucial element of life so heroically – packing a suitcase, shepherding the children around a park, driving – that he seems almost normal. Even I have not yet adequately been able to assimilate these disparate realities into anything approaching a rational whole. Yes, we are still getting used to things as they are.
Our forced attempt to live normally only further impresses upon us both the very inability to do just that. The parameters of life are different. We want to say yes to so many things. We still do. And we pay. At some point the cost will impress itself more firmly upon us and we will draw more definite boundaries. We will say no more often, and with less regret. A new form will emerge, a new life. But we are not giving up the old configuration without some stubbornness, some unwillingness to let it go too easily, some faith.
We are, after all, only just past the halfway mark of our marathon. We commemorated that halfway point with a visit to the site of the accident and the hospital where Steve first clung to life. It was sweetly anticlimactic, an awkward attempt to fasten some meaning to a mere location, when in reality, every meaningful event has occurred in our hearts, and not in the dirt where Steve lay. Still, we paused for a moment to hold hands and remember and pray and mark a year’s passing, amidst the clamoring needs of a three year old, and the ever pressing demands of time and space. The discovery of an old water bottle, probably Steve’s from the accident, served as an unlikely talisman, the marker of the place life changed forever.
In reading about marathons, one article noted something about a concentration of will, a focus. Our latest transition, the details, the goodbyes and the echoes of the empty house in which our lives still rang out somewhat morbidly these last two weeks have briefly distracted us. Without the intention to finish foremost in our minds, we find ourselves simply running.
Strangely, the words that have beckoned my spirit these last weeks have been Paul’s: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” Perhaps it is his simple certainty that my soul longs to remember. Paul’s focus is clear and unwavering, even as he writes from prison. His center is Christ, whether in life or in death. Certainly, no physical discomforts or emotional dislocations could distract him from his first love, God revealed in Christ. I find myself longing for solitude amidst the clamor of these days. I long to gaze long into the face of Grace and lay anchor there. I know these other details to be charlatans, laying claim on my time and purpose. Surely, the blessing of this discipline, this last year’s race, has been to focus our attention on the finish. To complete is not just to run but to run with purpose and toward a goal. And while the goal of physical healing remains deeply important, we both know there must be more that keeps us running.
We are forced to take some pause by the ocean this week amidst family. And as I sought an anchor, I came across this prayer, possibly by St. Aidan, my son’s namesake. It echoes my own heart, beating in the gap between two worlds, and two sides of the ocean:
Leave me alone with God as much as may be.
As the tide draws the waters close in upon the shore,
Make me an island, set apart, alone with you, God, holy to you.
Then with the turning of the tide
prepare me to carry your presence to the busy world beyond,
the world that rushes in on me till the waters come again and fold me back to you.
Love,
Michelle