Second Chances

I’m a big believer in second chances, probably because I have received so many of them throughout my life.

My biggest second chances occurred after my son Daniel died at 19 in an accident in January of 1993. A couple years later, Derek and Shannon, whose biological father left when they were not yet in school, chose me their dad; and then my friend Tim gave us his two sons, Jonathan and David, to grandparent. I can’t imagine greater gifts than the gift of children and grandchildren. Derek, a veterinarian and veteran, and Shannon, who is working on an MBA, and whose previous degree is in criminal and social justice, are in their early thirties now, both younger than Daniel would have been, and David is a college sophomore, Jonathan a high school junior. They are, with my wife Ann, the greatest joys of my life.

Friend Tim recently remarried and we got two more grandchildren, Alexa and Grayson. The universe - in the form of God’s Grace - keeps on giving.

And the universe occasionally takes away. We have several friends who are quite ill, and with the help of very good doctors and the Grace of God, they too have second chances. Somehow I believe that God’s Grace is more important in their lives than the doctors who are taking care of them so capably. The people I write about below are certainly not the only ones in pain who need Grace, but I don’t want to overwhelm. If you are one of my friends whom I do not list, please don’t be offended.

Linda, a primary teacher, has ovarian and uterine cancer, but after surgery is in the middle of chemo. Her hair has fallen out, but her spirit and her life remain vibrant and optimistic.

Our friend and putative cousin Margaret had a cancerous tumor removed from her breast, and will start chemotherapy next month. She already shaves her head and is one of the most beautiful women I have ever met. Her beauty is physical, of course, but she glows with an inner beauty that is impossible to describe. A Gwendolyn Brooks poem that could have been written about Margaret is at the end of this blog entry*.

Another cousin, Kathy, has multiple sclerosis and is mobile only because she has wonderful care and machines that get her places. At this point she can feed herself. MS is a dreadful, chronic, progressive disease in which the body betrays the mind. She too, is in good spirits and grateful to be alive.

Another friend, Bob, is in the throes of addiction. He goes up and down, and when he’s in the middle, he is the brilliant, charming, personable, witty, funny, wonderful guy we always loved. High, he isn’t that way. And when he’s in a low, he sleeps for . . . days. I despair that he will ever be well, but I continue to harbor hope. He says, “My continued existence is a little running gag that God and I have had going for the last thirty years or so... “ Grace keeps him alive too, and I believe that if he conquers his demons, he will be a huge blessing to the world.

As I said, I have been given second chances throughout my life. Please add your prayers that God will continue to bless these dear friends with His Grace.

Amen.

As always, I invite your comments - and prayers - below. Just click comments.


*To Those Of My Sisters Who Kept Their Naturals
Never to look a hot comb in the teeth.

Sisters!
I love you.
Because you love you.
Because you are erect.
Because you are also bent.
In season, stern, kind.
Crisp, soft -in season.
And you withhold.
And you extend.
And you Step out.
And you go back.
And you extend again.
Your eyes, loud-soft, with crying and
with smiles,
are older than a million years.
And they are young.
You reach, in season.
You subside, in season.
And ALL
below the richrough righttime of your hair.

You have not bought Blondine.
You have not hailed the hot-comb recently.
You never worshipped Marilyn Monroe.
You say: Farrah's hair is hers.
You have not wanted to be white.
Nor have you testified to adoration of that
state with the advertisement of imitation
(never successful because the hot-comb is laughing too.)
But oh, the rough dark Other music!
the Real,
the Right.
The natural Respect of Self and Seal!
Sisters!
Your hair is Celebration in the world!

GWENDOLYN BROOKS (1917-2000)
(1980)

The Casting Off, The Dying

(For the real Memorial Day, today)

The casting off, the dying
That begins at birth, she counts loss.
To start with, her childhood, standing

At wood stove at four to stir oatmeal
For too many brothers & too many sisters.
One brother missing in action in Korea,

Doubt like earwigs eating through her brain,
Waiting to hear, wondering.
& two brother’s heart attack much later.

Her father drowning in fluids of his lungs,
As he had drowned in alcohol
Life his heart couldn’t cope with.

Her sister, whose husband erased her mind
But kept her soul & body.
Her mother, whose mind fled first,

& soul, then body,
Which lay in the back of the car
While husband banged for fifteen minutes

On locked Emergency Room door
& she honked car horn
Hoping to wake anyone inside

Or her mother. & then older sister
Who suicided in millimeters
By injecting insulin to eat dessert,

Undertaker officiously waiting
Until everyone had gathered who
Was going to gather

To close the casket, & lock it
Guaranteed for fifty years to keep
Outsides out, insides in,

In full view with a Click,
A finality that turned her heart to prune
In contrast to her greatest loss,

Her only grandchild whose father, her son-in-law
Ordered him cremated after the accident
Of falling from roof onto pavement

Three stories hard below
Without seeing him & not really sure
He really died. Her heart was briefly sawdust

& that was the biggest
Casting off since three brother Lee
Whose appendix burst before the doctor.

Slow cutting off
Before casting off entirely
When husband had a stroke,

& amputation below the knee
& it didn’t heal & amputation above the knee.
& casting off entirely with casket closed

After visitation the night before the funeral.
& she didn’t see. But her heart
Was only a raisin then anyway.

& her breast. & modesty
For which she compensated
By wearing two shirts.

She sits filing fingernails,
Her best feature
After too many permanents

& too many castings off,
& inventories. Losses which
Begin at birth.