Credo

Oh, my friend, it's not what they take away from you that counts. It's what you do with what you have left. ~Hubert Humphrey

Now there is an apt sort of credo for the MS challenged, don't you think? Not that Hubert Humphrey had MS. But there sure as hell was something wrong with him. Maybe it was just his politics. Maybe it was his association with Lyndon Johnson, poor fella.

In any case, there could scarcely be words more pertinent to my present situation than those of Mr. Humphrey. To suffer a loss of ability, be it physical or otherwise, is to be challenged to the core of ones being. It is a test of character and faith like no other.

What shall we say if we lose our strength? To move from this moment forward is impossible?

What if the mind begins to struggle at clarity? What if ones memory begins to hide things away? Shall I say that because I can no longer think in the way I am accustomed to thinking, there is nothing left to be thought?

Or what if I think instead according to the pattern of my inability? It may be that something new will struggle out, heretofore constricted by the laws of cogency and common logic.

Who knows?

Ultimately, we are not in control. We may therefore either conform to whatever reality befalls us, or spend our lives insisting that we have been wronged.

There is strength is every weakness, and weakness in every strength. The trick is all in the proper positioning of self.

Eyesight as Opposed to Vision

When my wife was a teenager and living in Jakarta, she lost one of her eyes in a car accident. I say "one of," because I cannot actually picture just now which one it is. One does not really notice it, and this is not only because of the medical competence nowadays in supplying artificial eyes, but also because of the competence of her own personality and self esteem. The fact is, I did not know she had only one functioning eye until she told me so.

In this way, among many others, she is an inspiration to me. She complains not at all, never even mentions this deficit in vision. And here I am thinking myself unlucky for having to have cataracts removed--missing the immensity of the difference between a corrective surgery and the traumatic loss of an entire eye.

Life is a challenge from the outset--physically, emotionally, spiritually--and the individual personality either devotes itself to overcoming or to complaining. It is perhaps the central delusion of living that life itself should be without trouble. We are surprised at adversity, though it stalks us relentlessly from the cradle to the grave.

Those who are hardiest among us are those who understand that life is not a stroll in the park but a struggle to attain the end of each day with our faculties intact, to borrow a phrase from JD Salinger.

I may sometimes find myself lamenting the damage I have suffered from MS instead of acknowledging amazement at the capacity of my body to heal itself. In other words, I appreciate misfortune while making myself blind to miracle.

And so I remember my wife's spirit, her resolute refusal to be defined by anything other than her own hopes and dreams.