When It Matters

There are times when a small fact means something enormous. It pops up in context. Suddenly it means something huge when otherwise it would be overlooked. The desiderata of life is much like this. So much content we don’t keep track of it. Bits and pieces meaning little or nothing.


But then they do. Mean something. Like a thunderbolt the tiny bit or bob makes an impact totally out of proportion of our experience.


Buy a life insurance policy and you don’t really focus much on the death that makes the policy worth something. Let that event occur, and the money will be helpful at some point, but not when the death occurs. So much more meaning comes from the death. Lost companionship. Lost income. Continuation of expenses with less resources to pay for them. The smile that has been a constant is no longer there. The puns and chuckles are missing. The presence that is now absent. Like the pet that graced our lives for over 10 years, the slight movement noticed is no longer a tail, or a yawn, or scratching of the carpet. The pet is not there. The movement was something else, maybe a phantom of our imagination.


Absence of usual. Warmth of a sleeping companion. The habits that made noise, vibration, flickers of light. Routines now with less content. Missing the person. Missing the personality and mindfulness that formed so much of our own life experience.


Sitting in the surgery family waiting area waiting for Rocky’s surgery to be over, so many thoughts entered the mind. Together nearly 20 years. A lifestyle that is counter to 95% of normal American family life. Friends we made together. Employee colleagues that enter our common life together. Blending two families, now with adult children and 11 grandchildren. The mind begins to reel with possibilities of disappointing surgery outcomes.


Then the mind jumps to what life will become if surgery is successful. In our case, life will change greatly. Cuisine will be different. Who eats what, and when; and what about the other person in the household?  Both of us surely will not be eating smoothies as a staple? The absence of steaks and cheese burgers for one will dictate the same for both? Maintaining daily health will be different. Learning to speak and hear differently now that one has no voice but only a buzzer gadget hand held to the neck, coupled with exaggerated mouthing of words. That makes a sound that you and I can hear. Not a normal sound but a practical one.


Talking is natural to us. Forming sounds that uniquely combine to form dialects, languages, inflections, and special meaning and emphasis. I take that for granted. Do you?  But now Rocky will work to replace that with something entirely new to him. It will take practice on his part, and us. His part is to make intelligible sounds. Our part is to translate that readily into meaning, especially the meaning he intends for us. That’s a pretty good summary of communication, isn’t it?  Think about it.

Bottom line, much of what we call life is the result of complex actions, biology and emotions. Upset those patterns a bunch, and consider the effects. Thunderous, eh?


July 11, 2019

PS: This was written before surgery results were known; now they are. Surgery was a success. Now the healing. Much of the above is still happening as massive change in routines and wondering how they will settle into patterns. They will. We know they will. Love will make it so.