WINTER 2010George A. Crispin
Woodbury MMSome of the most beautiful flowers that share their scent with the forest grow almost unnoticed in out-of-the way places. They are the flowers in the shade.
One of the promises married people make to each other is to love one another. Love is much more than an emotion, it is doing for the other, and sometimes making sacrifices, and sometimes very large sacrifices. Six years ago my wife, Cindy, asked me to make a very large sacrifice, one that would change my life. Her severely mentally challenged sister, Jeri, lived in a group home in Virginia, a six-hour round trip, which we made four times a year. That was sacrifice enough. But when the group home closed, Cindy asked me to allow Jeri, to come live with us. I had previously said, “No way!” But faced with this request from my wife with tears in her eyes, I found I could not refuse. Thus, Jeri came to live with us.
Jeri was a challenge. I had no experience with a mentally challenged person. I found it hard at first to adjust. She called me “Dave,” Cindy’s former boyfriend. She tore up paper and scattered it all over. She “cleaned house” by throwing sundry valued items in the trash: cell phones, cameras, important papers and letters. She apparently had a restricted sense of time and would get up in the middle of the night, turn on the lights, and have loud conversations with herself. And, most irritating, her defense, when she felt it was needed, was to spit. Little humbles one the way having someone spit in one’s face. But nothing strengthens character deeper or faster than the Atticus Finch response of simply wiping it away.
Like most adversities, as Shakespeare tells us, sweet are their uses. The toad did wear a jewel in its head. After initial impatience, patience gradually developed. After initial misunderstanding, understanding developed. And after initial distance, closeness followed. After initial avoidance, love unfolded.
Jeri and I developed a connection that reflected, in time, love. We would have long conversations, dialogues that she would not understand, but respond to, no matter what was said, with “Right, right.” Whatever question was asked, the answer was always, “Right, right.” It was then I came to realize that it was not the content of the conversation, but the conversation itself that was important. How many conversations do we have where that would represent a valuable insight. I would put her to bed at night, kiss her and tuck her in, and with her eyes she would express how much this meant to her.
Jeri died on August 27 after about a week in the hospital. How wrenching this was for me I cannot adequately relate. For Cindy and Carleton, it was even more so. Now the house seems empty, with three of us instead of four. No scattered paper. No lost cell phones or mail. No solitary conversations in the night. But there is a hollowness that cannot be filled.
But upon higher reflection, lessons were left behind. A deeper sense of patience, a better understanding of the burdens others have to carry, knowing that love involves sacrifice, and realizing that some of the most beautiful and scented flowers grow in the shade.
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Friday, November 19, 2010 at 03:45 AM
