Darkly, Through a Glass

John’s back in the hospital. He was home a few weeks from his last stay, but this time he won’t be going back home. At least not according to his daughter.

The Parkinson’s has gotten to the point that he couldn’t keep his medications straight. He didn’t take some and maybe took the wrong ones at the wrong time, so he’s in pretty bad shape right now. He’s going to have to go to a nursing home when he gets out of the hospital.

This is the beginning of the end that I’ve dreaded since I learned about the Parkinson’s. John must know the same thing. Up until now, impending death has been theoretical. Now it’s more real than ever.

It’s big, it’s ugly and it’s not going away. It’s the specter that will loom over all of us, most darkly over him. And I wonder if somewhere, in his heart of hearts, he isn’t looking forward to no longer being aware of what’s going on. It’s been a long and bruising battle, with many more steps backward than forward.

I wonder if he’s just finally tired.

Shannon’s taking all this pretty hard. He and John go back decades, and this is just one more step toward the inevitable that’s been casting ominous shadows for the last several years. And it’s making the inevitable more real than it ever has been, giving that shadow dimensions it never had before.

Illness shows no discretion: it inflicts its malevolence indiscriminately. It comes and goes in its own time afflicting whomever it wants with no apparent rhyme or reason and, certainly, no apology. It is the one fact of life I cannot reconcile with the concept of a just God.

I will go on reconciling, at least trying to, and maybe at some point I my life I will have the wisdom to see how any of this makes sense. Right now, I just can’t. And maybe I’ll have to pass on to the next realm to ever have an inkling of an answer.

St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians tells us that “For then we shall not see darkly through a glass, (as we now do,) but we shall see face to face.”

Maybe I’ll find an answer then. Until I do, I’ll just go on pondering and meditating on the issue. I hold no great hope, though, for divine wisdom until then.

And I certainly don’t have to like it until I understand it.