GOING HOME
“I don’t
have anything to worry about now,” said US referring to the upside of memory
loss related to a recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.
“Life is
measured in squash days, sober on death row. The coming of dawn brings no bird
song, or even the comforting blare of city horns. Time is measured by the
clanging of doors and mechanical blinking on and off of fluorescent lights. Each day brings the same cold routine the
same blank night. This was to be my last but something went wrong. The
combination of two injections of Lactose prepared to bring about my quiet death
stopped my heart briefly, but only temporarily. My return to consciousness
confounded the doctor, set off a small tabloid tempest, and left me in a
peculiar limbo, as I wait news of what’s next.”
“Seeing you walk back in here, was like
looking at a ghost,” observes his older son, nicknamed Roach.
“Imagine how the ghost feels,” I reply.
The quiet drama
easier to admire than enjoy, is remarkably free of both sensation and
sentimentality in the depiction of the mundane mechanics involved in dyeing.
In August the
21 year old grey haired baby blue eyed US said,
“This will be
my last public appearance, my footsteps are slow. Don’t anyone feel bad, and
never a tear, I’ll be going to a better place. I’ll be with Precious, the ones
I love, and the Lord. I credit my wife for making me what I am. What a
blessing. In childhood's days my thoughts of Heaven were pearly gates and
streets of gold, all so very far away. A
place whose portals would unfold in some far-off distant day, but in the
gathering of the years my life is in the fading leaf, with eyes bedimmed by
tears and a heart often overwhelmed with grief. I look beyond the pearly gate,
beyond grief’s dark night, and see a place where loved ones wait, where all is
blessedness and light. God who wants to bring me home, not to a far-off distant
place. Heaven, after all is home. Just think of me as stepping a shore from
storms and tempest into unbroken calm, of waking and finding myself home; of
breathing a new air celestial air, invigorated and finding immortality. Oh, there's no disappointment in Heaven, no
weariness, row or pain, no Hearts that are bleeding and broken. “
Amen.
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read
more Dry Wallace stories go to: karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
