Treasure
A friend's father had a stroke a week ago.
His dad is physically o.k. I'm told. He isn't paralyzed on one side of his body like I've come to expect when hearing about strokes. He apparently seemed fine, or as fine as a person can be expected to be after a stroke.
But they were a bit thrown when he asked for a cigarette. He hasn't smoked in over twenty years.
Apparently what the stroke took was his memory. It reset the clocks to the late 70s.
He woke up feeling like just yesterday he had spent time with his 9 year old boy, and now this nearly 40 year old man with a wife and 4 kids is standing before him telling him that he's that little boy. Only fast forward past the century mark.
This must be more than a bit horrifying. Looking in the mirror and being instantly old. Finding out like it was the first time all the people that are gone. He had to suffer through the trauma of being informed that his sister went blind for a second time.
When I think of what can be stolen from a person, their health, their property, their status or reputation, to me this would feel like the greatest crime. To loose nearly 30 years of experience, of joyful moments, of quiet contentment. To loose 30 years of the building blocks of your personhood.
Frederick Buechner wrote a passage I liked on journaling, which I feel can apply equally to blogging.
He wrote:
His dad is physically o.k. I'm told. He isn't paralyzed on one side of his body like I've come to expect when hearing about strokes. He apparently seemed fine, or as fine as a person can be expected to be after a stroke.
But they were a bit thrown when he asked for a cigarette. He hasn't smoked in over twenty years.
Apparently what the stroke took was his memory. It reset the clocks to the late 70s.
He woke up feeling like just yesterday he had spent time with his 9 year old boy, and now this nearly 40 year old man with a wife and 4 kids is standing before him telling him that he's that little boy. Only fast forward past the century mark.
This must be more than a bit horrifying. Looking in the mirror and being instantly old. Finding out like it was the first time all the people that are gone. He had to suffer through the trauma of being informed that his sister went blind for a second time.
When I think of what can be stolen from a person, their health, their property, their status or reputation, to me this would feel like the greatest crime. To loose nearly 30 years of experience, of joyful moments, of quiet contentment. To loose 30 years of the building blocks of your personhood.
Frederick Buechner wrote a passage I liked on journaling, which I feel can apply equally to blogging.
He wrote:
"It is a Mark of wisdom to realize how precious our days are,
even the most uneventful of them.
If we can keep them alive by only a line or so about each,
at least we will know what we're sighing about when the last of them comes."
Amen.
Blog on people, Blog on.
posted by Will at 8:19 AM
1 Comments:
Wow. I'm not sure what moves me most about this post - the story of your friend's father or how you "pull focus" to a bigger picture ... both I think.
The other day I started writing about revisiting my old journals, but it almost felt too personal to "release" out into the world, but this post of yours puts it in some perspective. It's all about those sighs, huh?
(sigh)
D
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