Excerpt

[May, 2008]

Some Days Will be Weird

One of the most common questions these days is "How's Felix?" Actually, it's usually in three parts: "How're you?" (very short pause). "How's the family?" (pause). "How's Felix?" This last one comes out with a soft-spoken alacrity, as if the words hold a long story behind them.

I am always deeply touched that people care so much to ask. The hard part is answering.

[mid-August, 2007, on our way home]

The other day, i sensed Felix was sad, not in a “today was difficult” kind of way, but in a “life is hard” kind of way. Nothing overt, just a feeling. And equal to that was the feeling that it would all be OK, that Felix would get what he wanted from life, with a lot of hard work, and that it was OK to live in this world again. 

[mid-July, 2007, Emanuel Hospital, Portland, deep into Rehab]

It was about this time that the richness of our recovery began to reveal itself to us. It was about this time that hours would pass in stunned gratitude for what we were experiencing. The force of healing itself was monumental. It was the energy of holy spirit, of life itself demanding to live! It was human potency, intention, will and prayers all mingled together, seeming to cause literal shifts at the cellular level within our world.

[mid-June, 2007, still in ICU, the clouds obscure nearly everything...]

Every moment, every movement, every sensation those days felt bleak. The sadness was inexpressibly deep, insistent, persistent. Punishing storm clouds engulfed my son, me, us. The eye of this hurricane was blind and without calm. Then a crack, not of lightening, but in the matte of insatiable darkness. A rift in the pain slowly opened and with timeless gentleness a serene light shined into my soul.

It was like one of those overcast days after weeks of cloudy and rainy weather, when suddenly sunlight bursts through a tear in the clouds and reaches down at just the right and magical angle and lifts fear up by its roots and vanquishes it for close enough to forever. You can see the lines of its slanting brilliance, and suddenly everything is illuminated from inside your soul's most ancient safe place and you have to stop and bear witness and even the most scarred are grateful.

It was that way this Sunday when, stripped bare, i felt the presence of Divine Grace. I did not have the strength to capitalize words that day, but Divine Grace is real and living and can only come from a Loving God who long ago dreamt up Mercy.

I will forever hold that moment of grace in my heart. It was God saying to me that all will be well with us. It did not mean that Felix would live, or that if he were to live that he would be fully sentient. It was not that kind of promise. It certainly did not take the place of all my yearnings for Felix to survive and recover, but it was companion to those hopes as we walked in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

It was a deeper promise, one that transcends fear and is the answer to many of our most personal longings. Do not be afraid, Child, you are not alone. God and Love and Grace and Beauty and Joy will not depart your life forever, it said to me that Sunday afternoon. No matter how hard it gets, nor how painful nor how sad, this despair is not the end of that which makes Life Precious and Divinely-Touched. Perhaps simply, i for a moment saw past the illusions of permanence that daily fertilize our attachment to suffering.

I don't know. It doesn't matter. It was Real, of that i am certain.