Razia's aunt was in Ohio visiting her son and family. One day she sat crocheting while her grandchildren played a boisterous game of Twister in front of her. She smiled at their antics while manipulating the beginnings of a pink and purple blanket. Suddenly she found she could not push the needle into to the wool. Her hand had frozen and her throat had become impossibly dry. She allowed the unfinished project to drop into her lap. Within seconds she was incapable of moving the right side of her body. She tried to talk but scary undecipherable sounds were coming from her mouth.
Her son had just come home from work. He called an ambulance, feeling like he had walked in on a set of a horror movie. His entire body shook as he dialed the numbers. The next hour was a frenzy of sirens, brain scans and blood draws. The doctor concluded that she had suffered a hefty sized stroke and that she might never recover fully.
There were things worse than death.
Her son had just come home from work. He called an ambulance, feeling like he had walked in on a set of a horror movie. His entire body shook as he dialed the numbers. The next hour was a frenzy of sirens, brain scans and blood draws. The doctor concluded that she had suffered a hefty sized stroke and that she might never recover fully.
When Razia flew out to visit, her aunt held her hand tightly from the hospital bed and did not stop crying the whole time.
All Razia could think of saying was: "It's going to be all right, Pyari Khala"
Her words sounded hollow even to herself. On the drive back to the airport Razia would not be able to get certain images out of her head and a thought nagged at her:
There were things worse than death.
She had looked deep and long into her aunt's tear-filled eyes to try and figure out what she was thinking. Was she praying fervently for an end to the nightmare? Was she crying at the perceived loss of her dignity? Or maybe the frustration of not being able to tell a soul how she felt. She had never realized how important the simple act of speaking was. Razia's elderly neighbor had been debilitated by a stroke recently and she had seen him degenerate graduallly.
Razia could guess the outcome for Pyari Khala. Soon the family would watch a bubbly, creative lady dwindle into a mere shadow of herself. She would become completely dependent on harried, working adult children. As Razia stared at some puffy pink and white clouds through the tiny rectangular airplane window, a treacherous, rebellious thought lodged itself into her brain.
What was God thinking?
5 comments:
Oh Yet We Trust
Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
Behold, we know not anything;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last—far off—at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Spine chillingly appropriate.
you're scaring me
I'm at the age where friends are losing parents, and while my own parents are still with us, they and their friends spend their days dealing with one darned thing after the next - including strokes. Living through this with them, and thus looking down the tunnel of time at my own eventual fate, I have thought a lot about "what God was thinking" in designing our pitiful human bodies. I can only think that disease and suffering contain the message that we really do have to eventually let go of this life. We love it and cling to it because it is the only reality we know, and on the whole, for most of the people I know, life is very good. Most of us would never let go of it by choice. But what is faith other than our only way to connect to the greater reality of our being - we can only have faith that the suffering will end, and that the love we share with those who are suffering will never end.
A writer spends hours agonizing over the correct word or expression that will convey their ideas in the most effective way possible. The writer wonders is it worth all the trouble. When someone takes the time to comment so profoundly, the writer wonders..hmm now why would I want to spend time doing anything else but writing?
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