GOING HOME
US was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s by Dr.
Friden. I don’t have anything to worry about now. Says US Grant referring to
the upside of memory loss related to recent diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Life
is measure in punkin ways sober, on death row in my home in Ogden. 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 which is 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 85 year old said this will be my last public appearance. Don’t anyone
feel bad, I’ll be going to a better place. I’ll be with Precious, the ones I love,
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 to 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 of ten 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, for Heaven, after all is home.
Just think of me stepping a shore from storm and tempest to 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.
DR. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
