| Sunny Side Up
with Kathleen Gibson July 2, 2008 Discover the true meaning of fellowship Around four a.m.�far too early�the sun infiltrated the strands of the woven peach-colored throw draped over our bedroom window. I hung it there to keep out the light, but sunbeams are tenacious invaders. Preferring the dark, both the Preacher and I tossed. When we finally rose, instead of being grateful for another day, I started this fine one by complaining. �How�d you sleep?� I asked him first. �So, so. You?� �Not well. My mind wouldn�t stop whirring. � Lately I frequently doze in the day and wake in the night. That�s just one of the items on a long list of reversals that began when the Pirates of West Nile Neurological Disease attacked the Preacher last August. Since the advent of his disability most of our old routines have flipped over as slickly as donuts in hot oil. Our lives have become a rotating cycle of therapy, moving and speaking. I�ve given the list the creative title, �Things We Don�t Do Anymore.� He laughed, listening to today�s arrangement of yesterday�s litany. �I�ve lost the disciplines of exercising and journaling. I have no time to read or make a good meal. I can�t drive without falling asleep. I can�t remember how to play the piano�I don�t even know what box my music is in, and I�m sick of cardboard boxes�� (Since moving from the parsonage, they still lurk in almost every room. Our basement looks like a warehouse.) He who has lost his health, independence, job and home to a mosquito, who now uses walker and wheelchair, whose brain, still recovering from encephalitis, frequently halts his words midstream and causes him to forget the simplest things, gave a wry grin. �I�m glad I�m not the only one who�s lost things. But you did fall asleep, you know. I heard you.� I ignored the snoring inference. (Besides, women don�t snore, they bubble.) �Yes, I know. I found it preferable to worrying.� All life�s pirates�trouble and loss�specialize in betrayal. Under attack, many of our favorite things, the things we delude ourselves into believing unassailable, prove themselves made of little but wax: health, good friendships, steady jobs, homes, well-established routines. They melt in life�s heat, leaving us bemused and frightened as a child before a bully. In times like that (forgive me, Maria Von Trapp) simply remembering our favorite things makes one feel twice as bad as forgetting them. The Preacher and I have confirmed all that these last ten months on West Nile. We�ve discovered something else too. Far from pulpit, parsonage, and pew, we�ve found true fellowship�with fellow sufferers, many who�ve slipped through the cracks in our church doors. We support each other, need each other, and bring each other hope. Water in the wilderness, as scripture says. God�s love, carried from one sufferer to another, and twice as precious for it. I shudder to imagine the pirates that must assault our churches before we collectively discover the meaning of true fellowship. � 2008, Kathleen Gibson Respond Home |
 |