A BUMP IN THE ROAD
I
meant to get there right away
I
meant to leave without delay
But
before I could start on my chosen way
I hit a bump in the road.
The
bump was long and deep and wide
It
pushed my plans off to the side
And
rather jarred my fragile pride
The unexpected bump in the road.
The
bump was bigger than I’d thought
And
although against its pull I fought
It
took me down roads I had not sought
That treacherous bump in the road.
I
bumped and jarred and banged along
I
felt this way to be all wrong
But
gradually I heard a different song
From the mysterious bump in the
road.
It
led me down highways and byways and lanes
Through
violent storms and summer rains
To
straight and narrow and empty planes
That directing bump in the road.
I
climbed up mountains, down valleys, o’er dales
Through
rolling green lawns and hazardous gales
Into
the most hidden and secret of darkened trails
Led by that curious bump in the
road.
And
after years of climbing winding paths
I
found my way back to my road at last
Richer
from the journeys past
When I first hit the bump in the
road.
The
way I’d’ traveled was varied and long
But
the traveling had made me straight and strong
And
I’d learned to sing a joyful song
From that blessed bump in the road.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
DECEMBER
22, 2000. LATE.
It is December 22 and Ron is still
in the hospital. He is scheduled to be released tomorrow. His stay this time
was only five days longer than predicted. I am still determined to put a good
face on Christmas and a few wrapped presents sit under the tree that two church
members brought to us last week. I send out Christmas cards and include this
letter:
Dear
Friends,
I have been searching for the Wise
Men this Christmas.
On our first “married” Christmas,
Ron gave me a white porcelain set of the Holy Family with the intention of
adding a piece each year. But before he got to the Wise Men, the set was
discontinued. Each year when I set up my crèche, I feel that it is incomplete.
No Wise Men. So as I bustle about my Christmas duties, I keep an eye out for
these tall, imposing figures that would complete my Nativity. So far, they have
eluded me.
Our family has been on a journey
this past year. Beginning with Ron’s horrific accident on March 1, we have
trodden paths we had never expected to traverse. There have been valleys and
mountains. There were moments when we wondered if we would ever walk in the
light again. But we kept on walking, guided by no more than the Light of Our
Savior and His promise to us: “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
The journey of the Wise Men ended
when, at last, they found the Child and “fell down, and worshipped Him”
(Matthew 2:11). Then they departed unto their own countries to fool that wicked
old Herod. They are not mentioned again in the Gospels, but one assumes that on
starlit nights they glanced up at the sky, remembering the brilliance of the
light that had set them on their journey and marveling at the intricate
workings of God.
Our journey is not yet ended. In the
weeks, months, and years ahead Ron will continue to heal. We pray, as we know
you do, for his complete recovery. But, whatever the outcome, we have been
forever changed by the journey. With each step, we have gained strength from
our Savior. He is present not only on the mountaintops but in the valleys and
in the waiting rooms. When others have commented on the strength the children
and I have shown these last nine months, my answer has been that it is a
strength given by God.
My crèche is still without Wise Men.
They are still traveling on to their destination, still following the Star and
the Promise. I know that they will not turn back from their journey until they
have reached their appointed end.
Perhaps next year, we, too will
stand in awe before the newborn king and rest from our travails. We pray many
blessings upon you this Holy Season and rejoice in knowing that, in some small
way, our lives have touched yours.
Ron, Linda, Dennis,
Bonnie, and Allen
I sign our names in cheerful green
ink, forcing an optimism I no longer feel. In fact, I am quite beyond feeling.
I am beginning to wonder if any of the promises I cling to are true. I need at
this moment, if not a Star blazing from the East, something that will salvage
my faith. Anything.
But night, as is wont, holds no
answers but only the emptiness I have come to know so well.
JANUARY
1, 2001. 5:30AM.
It is proving to
be the predicted shoestring Christmas, stretched taut between two
hospitalizations. The heater breaks down on Christmas Eve and Allen and I try
to cajole it into working with a hammer and a wrench. I wrap Ron up in afghans,
fearful of another attack of pneumonia. Around midnight, the ancient heater
finally coughs into function, but I know that this is one more thing to add to
the list. Where will the money come from for this?
I think of a word I have just
learned: “synchronous.” It means, “Occurring at the same time.” My life, I
muse, is synchronous. Everything happens at once and I have no time to sort it
out.
Christmas vacation is a blur. Ron is
too ill for much company or visiting, so mostly we sit at home, huddled in
front of the fireplace and watching Christmas videos. I try to read and write,
but it seems I no sooner get settled then Ron needs me for something. Often I
look at the sketch I made in my journal of Ron’s open wound back in November,
reminding myself that the healing going on inside of him is not yet complete.
Above the sketch, I have written, If God
can heal the outside, He can also heal the inside. There are days I need
this reminder.
Dennis, who supports my writing even
if he seldom comments on it, has given me Chicken
Soup for the Writers’ Soul. I leaf through it, engrossed in stories of
ordinary people who felt the same passion to write that I do. Even as I wait to
hear from Bonnie, who has spent the night at a friend’s house this New Years’
Eve, I calm my frayed nerves by writing down ideas in my journal, ways that I
can somehow pare my duties down and find time to write. There is no doubt—well,
practically no doubt—that given the time and the ink my computer could turn out
a best-selling novel. Ideas flow across me like a river over a waterfall,
banging and crashing against the rocks as they jar me at odd moments during the
day, carrying me headlong into a cold, shocking plunge: quick, write that down!
And sometimes the idea makes it to my journal, but often I am summoned away by
the care of my life.
The few days left of break are
quickly spent. Housebound and broke, I am rediscovering simple pleasures:
The poetry of Anne Sexton, riveted
by her haunting, honest admissions. I slide a thin volume off my bookshelf one
day and sit on the floor for hours, wedged into a corner where no one will
think to look for me, allowing myself to be engulfed in the voice of the poet.
I drown in her sea of melodic pain, feeling a kinship to one in such despair.
Knitting with warm, loopy yarn on
large needles. Listening to the satisfying click of the needles against each
other as the stitches slide and a single strand takes on new dimensions. The
bright colors ease my worn and tired soul.
Snowball fights. One crisp, perfect
night we bundle up and head into the frost, pelting one another with soft,
white balls. The cold air pierces my lungs and my shouts are carried over
treetops and into the quiet night. My fingers and toes grow cold and I stomp
around, scooping up the snow into round balls and hurling them at my family.
Eventually, we all fall together into a heap, laughing and warm and heedless of
our clothes.
Hot cocoa. Sipped while reading an
engrossing book that is not required for any graduate class.
Stretching. Simply putting my arms
over my head and reaching my fingertips towards heaven. My bones creak, my
muscles unclench. It is not as good as one of Heather’s magical shoulder rubs
when she sneaks into my classroom before after school care, but the tingles
down my arms and back remind me that I am still alive.
Sometimes I am finding, I need to
remind myself that I am, indeed, still alive. Parts of me seem to keep dying
off.
JANUARY
9, 2001. 7AM.
Christmas break is really just a
pause, a comma rather than a period. Ron has at least two more surgeries ahead
of him, as yet unscheduled. It is rainy and foggy the first day back at school,
a less than auspicious beginning. The only umbrella that has not disappeared
into someone’s trunk or locker is the big striped one Pop Pop used on his
riding lawnmower. I am not sure how I fell heir to this treasure, but it will
keep me dry as I trek across campus today. Feeling a bit like a circus clown on
a high wire, I teeter out into the morning.
My car—thank God!—starts on the
first try. It would not start for Bonnie yesterday as she was on campus, so Ron
and I needed to cross country in the falling snow to rescue our stranded child.
It has not been Bonnie’s week for cars. On Tuesday at man pulling out of a
parking lot smashed into the driver’s side of her red Tempo, pushing her car
into the guard rail. Bonnie was bounced around like gravel in a cement mixer
but is otherwise unhurt. We can’t say the same for the car. While we wait for
insurance companies to inspect the damage and render their decisions, we shift
the two remaining cars among three drivers. Bonnie has hitched a ride with
Christina today so I am alone on Route 452.
I do not like headlights. They
pierce my corneas like miniature novas, exploding beams that burst into
fireworks and reflect off rain puddles. Every day can be the Fourth of July. I
squint against the onslaught of light. A pain—small and innocuous—begins behind
my right temple. The pounding will increase in intensity and rhythm as the day
wears on and the bottle of Tylenol in my purse will be opened more than once.
It is difficult to see the road. My
headlights slice through the fog and rain and the drops sparkle with
luminescence, millions of fireflies dancing in front of my car. I navigate
through them carefully. The cars line up behind me, frustrated by my crawl, but
in the fog and the rain all are too cautious to pass me. I am, for the moment,
the leader of the pack. I drive past the spot on 452 where Bonnie’s car was
hit, shuddering at the thought of my daughter’s helplessness. But I have driven
past other places where ones I have loved have had their blood spilled on the black
asphalt. Bonnie is still whole.
It is the white line that is my
salvation on this dark morning, that lovely line so thoughtfully painted by
highway workers. While the paint glows and reflects a hazy shadow to the right,
it is low to the ground and does not grab the headlights and toss them into the
air, confusing me with the iridescence. I follow the line foot by foot; it
disappears into the dark now and again, rounding a corner or replaced by a curb
or barrier. I panic at these moments. It is my lifeline and losing it leaves me
adrift on the black sea. I flounder, searching for the marker, praying the
wheels of my car still grip the road. I have gone wrong on occasion, turning
into driveways and parking lots when I lost the white line. I needed long moments
to regain my equilibrium, holding my breath and pulling out into the flow of
traffic again, picking up the white line in broken pieces and allowing it to
guide me.
It is a peculiar way to see. Strange
and weird and wondrous. It is almost impossible to explain to anyone but my eye
doctor, who has stalwartly tried to help me overcome this disease since I was
nineteen and began walking into walls, the shadow images of my childhood now full-blown
and distracting. Neil is, he tells me, president of my fan club, marveling at
what I have been able to accomplish with such distortions in my vision. I have
tried to explain that my vision and my view are two different things. The way I
see the world is definitely distorted but my perceptions of the world are not.
I just follow the white line.
Perhaps it would be a gentler world
if it were, if all the edges that define our planet are blurred and hidden in
shadows. If there were more fireworks on perfectly ordinary days. If everyone
could summon a skyrocket for their own amusement at any given moment. If each
of us had a white line to follow, a sure directive for their paths.
The white line guides and once again
I have traversed the thirty-mile drive to my school. I leave my car in the
parking lot and carefully pick my way through puddles and ice patches. There is
no line here to guide me, but memory serves. The sky has lightened a bit and
while I cannot quite see the steps, I know they are there.
The thumping behind my eye has
increased. The fluorescent lights in my room will play havoc with my vision. I
will squint to bring my sixth grader’s essays into focus and decipher my own
handwriting on the blackboard. Somehow, I will find a way. The white line that
I have followed into teaching continues to direct my path. It is not always an
easy line to follow. More than once, I have lost the line and meandered for a
while. It is a demanding line, expecting more from me than I think I can give,
pushing me to limits I am not always prepared to face.
I make my way down the hall, using
my hands to guide me on the stairs. Whatever the day holds, it will undoubtedly
test both my vision and my view. But it is where the line has led me.
The line God has chosen for me.
JANUARY
10. 2001. 4PM.
One person sought me out today. She
came at the end of English class, standing to the side and smiling at my
students as they left, the room the usual hub-bub of sixth-grade confusion.
“I wanted to tell you,” she began.
My mind scrambled to finish her sentence with information she needed to impart,
an observation she needed to make. But instead, she finished with, “you helped
me.”
These words fell like molten gold
onto my tired ears, dripping and swirling into rivulets in my heart. You helped
me. Me helped you. The meaning is the same. Something
I-said-did-thought-acted-demonstrated-read had helped another human being in the
struggle we call life.
The details of the conversation do
not matter. The way in which my words aided another colleague is important only
to her. What matters is that God was able to use me, depleted as I was, as a
tool in her life. Even without the acknowledgement Nicole brought to me, this
purpose is a high-calling. Amid the busy day of a middle school teacher with
planning periods precious and few, she took the time to come to my room and
tell me.
Remember those ten lepers that Jesus
healed? They had come to Him begging for help, imploring Him to have mercy on
them. And He did. He said but a word and they were healed, running off in their
rejoicing to rejoin their families and their lives.
But one came back. He saw that he
was no longer affected with leprosy and he marveled at the unmarked skin on his
hands. He turned from the road, postponing his reunion with his own family. He
turned back and bowed at the feet of the Lord, giving thanks and praise.
“And what of the other nine?” asked
Jesus.
The man shrugged. “They have gone,”
he said. “They were anxious to return to their families. They have been
diseased for so long that they could not wait.”
“Yet you came back,” the Savior
observed. Then He bade this former leper, too, to return to his own home,
saying, “Thy faith has made thee whole.”
I wonder if Jesus did not tuck this
little “thank you” into a hidden pocket of His robe someplace and keep it for a
rainy day, a day that turned so dark no one stood beside Him.
One had come back.
The other lepers remained healed.
Jesus is not vindictive. But perhaps the soul of the man who came back carried
him forward with more joy and compassion. Perhaps his miraculous recovery and
heartfelt gratitude allowed him to reach out to others with these words, “Once
there was a man who healed me.”
And maybe, just maybe, one life was
changed. Maybe someone said thank you.
All it takes is one.
JANUARY
11, 2001. 8 PM.
I was behind a woman in the market
today who bought a king-sized Hershey bar and a Good-housekeeping magazine. I thought to myself, Good for you. Nothing like a little self-indulgence. Now, it
is true that I don’t really know that both these items were for her. Maybe the
Hershey bar was for her husband and the magazine—which featured a picture of
Kathie Lee—for a son whose school report was on the exploitation of children in
sweat shops. But I like to think that these items were both for her and that
they were the beginning of an evening of self-indulgence. No offence intended,
but she looked like she could use a little indulgence. Tired. Drawn. Her hair a
little lifeless. Wearing the pallor of winter. Much like I looked when I saw my
face in the mirror this morning. I guess I could stand a little self-indulgence
as well.
What is it that makes me afraid to
yield to this inclination now and then? Am I truly afraid that the world will
collapse without me?
Or afraid that it won’t?
JANUARY
14, 2001. 10 PM.
Bonnie’s new boyfriend likes to fix
things. To people who live in an ancient house in constant need of repair, this
young man and his tool box are a blessing. In the seven weeks they have been
dating, he has fixed the outside faucet, the burners on the stove, the wobbly
legs on the dining room chairs, the loose leg on the coffee table, and the
outside porch light. He has rewired the outlets in the dining room and the
living room, installed new overhead light fixtures in the basement, and put a
new light in the foyer. He says he can’t wait to get his hands on our pipes!
He asked me yesterday how long the
back burners on the stove had been out and I cast my mind over the last ten
months and said, “Somewhere between the ruptured diaphragm and the first
infection.” I am sure he thought it an odd sort of answer, but he had the good
manners not to say so.
It is true, though. Out of the last
twenty-four months, Ron has spent fifteen in the hospital. This means that I
spent fifteen months in waiting rooms and emergency rooms. I ran on a daily
basis from work to the hospital to home and back to work, squeezing in graduate
school along the way. I became adept at grading papers while perched on the
green plastic chairs outside the OR and doing laundry at midnight. We lived on
meals cooked in the microwave or in crock pots or donated by church members.
Now and again I ran the vacuum cleaner. I had the heater repaired when it conked
out at Christmas, figured out how to install the window air conditioners last
summer, remembered to change the oil in the cars, and paid the bills on time.
But I never once thought of climbing
up onto the roof to investigate the condition of our shingles. When the
overhead light in the living room quit working, I lived without it. I didn’t
know what to do about the leaky outside faucet except shut the water off. The
vagaries of the stove remained a mystery.
My focus was clearly not on my
house. It was on Ron. I Corinthians 6:19 says that our bodies are the temple of
God. While my materials house fell into disrepair, it was Ron’s body that
occupied my thoughts and energies.
Two years ago, the current state of
my house would have immersed me in guilt. But God has shown me these last
months that my energy is finite. I need to choose wisely where I invest it. I
chose Ron. The house could wait.
Ron continues to heal and recover,
although it is slow going. Time invested into repairing his temple has not been
in vain. There are days when his eyes sparkle with a light I did not think I
would see again. He laughs more. He will grab me and tickle me and in the
manner born into all males think it funny to put his cold hands on my neck. His
body is almost repaired due to God and the prayers and skills of many.
Nicholas and his toolbox are welcome
visitors to our broken-down house. He honors and respects my daughter. He makes
her feel good about herself and invests his energy into putting our house back
in order. Nicholas brings with him a new season, a season of repair.
FEBRUARY
11, 2001. 8 PM.
Life holds no
guarantees. I remember thinking this as I drive to school this morning. I heard
the sound of an ambulance in the distance and my hands froze on the steering
wheel. What if it all happens again? Just because we have had our share of
tragedies this past year does not make us immune from another. Maybe it is
God’s way of preparing me, for I am not surprised when I receive an emergency
phone call two hours later. Marie, our school secretary, is apologetic when she
gives me the pink slip. She has carried many down to my room.
This time, though, it is not Ron. It
is Bonnie, my sunshine. I call the number on the message slip shoved into my
hands and am connected with the nurse at Bonnie’s community college. All
soothing and comforting, the nurse tells me that Bonnie is doubled over in pain
and crying. The nurse suspects that she has a kidney stone. I shift into
automatic, letting Marie know that I need to leave, and grab my keys and my
coat from the closet.
Bonnie has been raised with boys. We
say it in the same tone we would say, “Bonnie has been raised with wolves.” We
mean it the same way. Squished between two brothers and with a parade of Lost
Boys traipsing through her life and parking their sleeping bags in our living
room for months at a time, Bonnie has learned survival skills. She has a
sarcastic wit and a fierce right hook. She does not suffer fools lightly. Boys
who have dared to cast an eye in her direction have found that she is just as
likely to tell them off as she is to date them.
Lately, since the advent of
Nicholas, she has been trying to be “more like a girl.” Enter the curling irons
and the make-up case. Earrings and dressy sweaters. Perfume. Nail polish. All
the things I have been dying to share with my daughter in which she has had no
interest. Until now.
When Bonnie left the house this
morning, she had on both eye shadow and lipstick. Her hair was pulled back and
curled. Her cheeks were brushed with pink. She smelled like apple blossoms. She
looked beautiful. But even as she left for school, the hair was beginning to
bother her and the lipstick needed to be reapplied.
“You know, Mom,” she said, “I don’t
know about all this girl stuff. It might not take.”
Bonnie has, after all, been raised
with boys. It is akin to being raised with wolves. It has given her an inner
strength that is concealed by her outward appearance. Whatever is going on
inside of her right now, it cannot be stronger than she is.
MARCH
3, 2001. 5PM.
It began here, We walk down the long
corridor, each of us lost in our own thoughts. We have timed this passage,
sometimes making a game out of it, trying to improve upon our brisk pace as we
marked the distance. But we do not hurry now or check our watches. Bonnie moves
as slowly as Ron, still recovering from the severe kidney infection that sent
her to the hospital two weeks ago. I blink at the light, a case of iritis and a
suture wrapped around a blood vessel in my right eye causing a throbbing pain.
But time does not matter tonight. This will be, we pray, the last time we make
this journey and it cannot be marked in mere minutes.
The walls and the carpeting are all
too familiar. We have nodded to many of the faces we pass, not knowing names
but recognizing fellow pilgrims. Sometimes we have sat in waiting rooms with
them, letting our Styrofoam cups of coffee grow cold as we tapped our
fingernails on the molded chairs and kept a sharp eye out for green-gowned
figures.
The corridor ends and we enter the
main lobby. The same burgundy and pink furniture sits on the same beige rugs.
There are touches of green today in token of the approaching Irish holiday. We
have seen the lobby decked out for Easter and Halloween, Thanksgiving and
Christmas. The seasons, too, have trudged across this floor.
One West is to our left, just beyond
the bank of elevators. It is our first stop. Here we deposit the flowers we
have brought to the nurses, reminiscing with them for a few minutes. There are
a few quick hugs and handshakes. Several patients ambulate the halls in their
blue hospital gowns. We do not linger, but head back to the elevators and up to
the fourth floor.
I catch my breath here. The scene is
achingly familiar; a family sits in the glassed-off waiting room outside the
ICU, wringing their hands and praying. I have been inside this room too many
times to count. I do not need to enter it to remember.
We circle back on our tour, past the
pay phones where I dropped so many quarters, past the telemetry units and the
operating rooms. They are now a part of our past.
I can talk now. My voice, scratchy
for the last few days as we finished up with medical tests, no longer catches
in my throat. Here is where I would lean my head against the wall, praying for
the strength to go on. Here is where I would stop for a moment, gathering my
courage around me before plunging headlong down the hall. Here is where I sat
and cried one evening, too broken and tired to stand.
Bonnie and Allen hug me. It’s okay, Mom. We made it.
And it seems as if we did. For the
last time, we traverse the corridor, walking slowly and sharing our memories.
There is no need to rush. Ron, his gait cautious and halting, walks with us.
Today, he has been released from the services of Dr. Joan Huffman and her
staff.
Step by slow step, we have come to
the end of this part of our journey.
