Chris Writing here. A meditation I began writing last Friday:
Yesterday morning I was elated.
The night before, I literally woke up about 12 times anywhere from grunting to yelling to squealing like a 4-year-old. I am blaming demerol (which I formerly referred to as “happy pills” ) for contributing to making the process of falling asleep take a turn for the massively weird. That process being: gradually drift from lucid, rational consciousness into a state of hearing strings of irrational phrases strung together in my head. Then, dream that I am in some sort of situation in which I am kicking, falling, or otherwise inappropriately using my surgically repaired leg. Next comes feeling pain in said leg, anywhere from:
1. a mild cramping, resulting in a grunt or smacked lips and the sensation of wondering if I really was kicking or flailing my leg while I was asleep. I routinely “flail” as I first fall asleep. I had thought that locking my brace while I sleep would prevent this.
to:
2: still staying in a state of semi-consciousness, like what kids go thru in a “night terror”, and (not calmly) sharing the observation that “MY ACL SPLIT IN TWO!”
It didn’t.
After about an hour of genuine sleep from 6 to 7, it was about time to get up to get ready for physical therapy. My now un-braced leg let me know so with another dream-kick-flail-scream-lip smack alarm clock. I noticed my leg was bent an an angle that previously would have been quite painful. I bent it again a few times to a similar position, and it didn’t feel too bad.
It was time to get up. So I got up. I didn’t get a crutch to get up. I just got up. And I walked to the dresser and then to the bathroom. I walked back in the bedroom. Leah, from her bed on the floor, looked at me with a look that said “you’re not supposed to be doing that, and I’m showing concern, but I’m kind of glad you’re doing that.”
Yesterday afternoon I was sad.
Sad is a word we often use only with children. It and “happy” are usually the first two emotion words kids use. But we tend to move on to other words as adults. Maybe adults still say it as an expletive when Whole Foods is out of wheat germ or something like that, but we mostly leave it to kids.
Adults often talk about “being depressed”. Or about things like the news being “depressing”. I have been depressed. Clinically depressed, and I know what that’s like. It’s serious and it’s something to work through and deal with.
Yesterday I wasn’t really depressed. I was just sad. Late afternoon, Leah, the kids, and Bop and Nana went for an afternoon to the neighborhood pool. After a triumphant, but tiring day at PT with no crutches, I was trying to get some work done lying on the couch in the afternoon. I actually looked forward to the empty house as maybe being an aid to that. Deciding that morning to go off of demerol “not happy pills” may have had me at some level of narcotics withdrawal. I had started taking ibuprofen the day before. Great for the knee, bad for the stomach. So, I got about an hour of data entry done, but I was wiped out. I felt bad. It was hard to imagine anything being enjoyable. During times like this I’m often confronted with my own fragility, weakness, selfishness, mortality, and a feeling of desperately clinging to things I try to hold precious.
I started getting emotional thinking about things that I had wanted to do with my children this summer, things that we’re more able to do in the U.S., but probably wouldn’t be able to now. I had learned about some nature programs for kids being held this summer at Rockwood Park here in Chesterfield County. I thought it would be a great chance for them to learn about at experience wonder at God’s creation. We didn’t get to any of them yet, and the chance had probably passed. I almost got teary thinking of Austin with his wonder-stricken face looking at turtles or something. I kind of got desperate thinking about trying to pull off something even in the hobbling, time-crunched next couple months.
Then my wife and kids came home.
The last few nights, my waking up in the middle of the night and saying things like “my leg is split in two!” hadn’t really helped Leah get a good night’s rest. So, after getting home, Leah informed me that her mom had arranged for her to stay in a hotel for a night.
I started to get a little broken up. I would miss her.
I wanted to do something with Austin, but our normal activities of playing ball or wrestling weren’t an option.
“Austin, want to read a book with me? A chapter of A Horse and His Boy?
“No, I don’t want to read. I’m just gonna go play”
I cried. I don’t remember the last time I cried, though I couldn’t tell if Austin could tell.
Leah finally persuaded Austin to read. “Why don’t you read Just as Good? It’s a baseball book.”
“Ok”.
Leah informed me that Just as Good is a longer book, so I would need to be the one reading.
It turns out Just as Good is the story of Larry Doby, the first American League baseball player to break the color barrier in the late 1940s. The story is told from the perspective of a young African-American boy and his dad listening to Doby’s Cleveland Indians’ World Series game on the radio.
I had a hard time making it through.
On about the first page, I had to explain to Austin that there was a time in which people with black skin weren’t allowed to play baseball in the Major Leagues. I told Austin,
“Sometimes people won’t even be friends with someone else because of the color of their skin”
“Why?”
All I could muster out was “b...bb...because of sin!”
I especially got choked up at the parts with the boy and his Dad, who would assure his son, “Change is comin’!”
I somehow made it through the book.
Thanks for choosing that one, Leah. Minutes later I sarcastically commended her on her choice of books given my emotional state. She smilingly apologized.
Recently I was talking with a friend about how over the last few years I have been doing really well in regard to not suffering from depression. But, I shared with him that it’s also a struggle in that I don’t want to stand emotionally aloof from the brokenness of the world. To be an agent of healing in the world, one needs to a certain extent to share in its sorrow.
I’ve found that through my surgery recovery God has been re-opening a tender spot; for compassion, for my family, for sensing the tenderness of his Father love for me. The world is broken, but God has done something about it. His Son was broken for the world.
I’ve been feeling that. Both happy and sad.
