remembrances

It is customary to begin the New Year by looking ahead at the year to come, making resolutions about how to live Life better, with desires to become a better person, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

A friend died yesterday, and having just learned this out today I now find myself in a eulogistic mood, perhaps not as much for him as for those who survive him.

He was a good man who happened to be paraplegic. This happened in a football accident in high school, changing the course of his life forever. He met his wife some years later, when taking tennis lessons--she was a teacher for disabled tennis students, and he was her pupil. The rest was history.

They were married for about 10 years, maybe more or maybe less. They have a beautiful little boy who has Down's syndrome.

She is perhaps one of the strongest, most courageous, beautiful people I have ever had the privilege of meeting. Knowingly committing oneself to a lifelong partnership with a man who has, on average, 20 to 25 years following initial paralysis is the embodiment of God, of true love, and of selfless sacrifice.

We first met them at Church one day. His parents were in the pew with them, and as we had a daughter about the same age as their grandson, we started talking--children are great conversation-starters, no es cierto?--and learned they were from Mississippi. With our New Orleanean connection, we had a lot of common knowledge to share which rapidly established the connection between our families. His parents visit here quite often to help out with watching their grandson when the couple must be away for his work, which required him to travel a great deal back and forth to New Mexico. They were to be in the area here for a few years, then head back to New Mexico. We thus had the opportunity to get to know this family and, indeed, look forward to the grandparents' visits every so often as well.

At Easter this year, she and I sat outside the sanctuary of our Church in the Narthex area as my son was fussy and her son needed to move around. We did not listen to the Mass being broadcast through speakers but instead she told me that her husband was failing. This woman, who never once is seen without a smile on her face, tears rolling down her smiling cheeks, confided that she is so tired of the hard downhill crashes after such great plateaus with her husband's state of health. She said the mini-strokes were scaring her. She said there were days that he didn't know if he would wake up the next morning. She said she was not ready to lose him, that they had come so far. Then she had to dash up and chase her son and, once effectively reining him in closer to her, we had the chance to hold hands and say the Our Father together.

I have been praying for peace for her since.

In May I saw her mother-in-law again, who said that things are really looking up and that the medications he is now on have been doing him a great deal of good. We went away for vacation in the summer, and our Mass attendance schedule changed radically in late summer and into the fall, so we would only see the family sporadically. However, whenever we did, we saw them together and could always wave and catch their eyes, albeit from across pews and aisles.

He was a courageous man. I could never imagine waking up each day thanking God that I was still alive.

She is a courageous woman. I could never imagine waking up each day thanking God that my husband was still alive.

We healthy people take so much for granted. We have to be thankful for each and every moment, and for each and every time God's hand spares us harm.

I hope they can somehow know how many lives they have touched, just by example.