I love to watch those short video clips on Facebook. Because Deena and I have a golden retriever, I enjoy videos of goldens jumping into swimming pools and running like ours does. I also enjoy parkour videos and people jumping off ledges into swimming holes, which is what I did as a child, though not from more than twenty or thirty feet. Never did I think, however, that the life and my wife and I share would be featured in one. When Deena and I got married in our mid-to-late sixties, we hoped for a decade or more of good health, but as they say, “Life is what happens when you are making plans for something else.” This is our story and how we managed to cope and face dire straits together.
Deena has had a long history of hypertension, which has been stable over the past few years. However, fourteen months ago, they discovered she had a brain aneurysm that was stented last August. Earlier in her life, she had a brush with unexplained blindness that defied conventional explanation until a gifted ophthalmologist discovered the cause and corrected her vision.
I’ve had a fairly healthy life until I turned seventy. However, some of the secondary issues I’ve faced during my fifties and sixties (such as COPD, hyperlipidemia, and T2DM), while not restricting my activities, have denied me a “Plan B” in case of emergency. For example, I have obstructive sleep apnea. It may have contributed to narrowing my airway over time. So, while I can breathe just as well as ever while awake, anesthesiologists are complaining that they cannot intubate me with an endotracheal tube. That means there is a problem if and when I need general anesthesia. How can they intubate me during surgery?
I’ve had four or five surgical procedures in the last thirty months. I’ve had a ventral scar re-reduced, four bladder procedures for cancer, and two kidney procedures (placing and removing a stent), and now I’m facing even more daunting surgery in another month or so. Plus, my bladder cancer is classified as high grade, which means that it should be no surprise if or when it returns.
I sometimes feel like Deena and I are in a kayak shooting the rapids of a tempestuous and incredibly dangerous stretch of river. Beyond the sheer speed and strength of the current, there are sharp, towering rocks that threaten us. And almost each rock promises some sort of misery should we collide with it.
Some rocks portend cancer, others stroke, heart failure, sepsis or just broken bones. If you collide with a rock that symbolizes dementia, then Alzheimer’s is in your future. And then, some rocks are just rocks. The current drives you away from some boulders towards others. You have a small bit of control with your puny paddles, but not nearly enough, and after a short time you are exhausted.
Some surrounding rocks loom dozens of feet into the air, while others are submerged. We don’t even notice them until they threaten to capsize us. From time to time, the river broadens, and the current slows down. During those few brief, precious intervals, you try to catch your breath, but you can’t let your guard down because there is a bend in the river ahead, and you hear the sound of what can only be an immense waterfall just minutes away. Nor can you bail out and beach your kayak. Before you know it, you are at the precipice of the falls, what a scientist would call the event horizon if you were about to plunge into a black hole.
The Invisible Hand
Deena and I have an unseen presence working in our lives. As Adam Smith claimed an invisible hand guided the market place, we have an invisible hand that guides us and determines our destinies as we flow through the River of Life. We know this because we’ve invited God’s Spirit to do precisely that. This means that when our strength fails us, we can safely let go. It means that whatever afflicts us for good or for bad, it is because God has allowed us to experience it. Nor do we live charmed lives anymore than anyone else. Not every Christian dies peacefully in their sleep. At death we’re being born into the next life even as we were born into this one. It can be a violent struggle.
Journey’s End
We don’t know how our journey will end, certainly not when. I don’t even know at the moment how substantive my surgery might be later this month. This is certainly not easy for Deena. Who wants to see a loved one broken, struggling to hold on? And as she comforts me, she herself needs comforting. It can be exhausting for any family.
We see God’s hand opening, nudging us to the right when we think we should steer to the left. And, as quickly as our kayak overturns, it rights itself. Sometimes we notice, at the last minute, an alternative route around a rock that doesn’t seem as threatening, and it is within our power to paddle for it. We reach it and are able to recoup a bit. Thus, we live to see another day sheltered from the dangers that surround us.
My Question to You
The question I leave you with is whether you have an invisible hand guiding you? Your river may be taking a different course than ours. Your challenges might not be physical health, but finances, depression, relationships, drugs, career concerns, bitternessm or whatever else might rob you of the incredible experiences that this life has to offer.
