Some goodbyes are more difficult than others. Some are ultimate and final. Youth seldom recognizes such moments. I don’t remember the last time I saw my grandfather. Busy with my seemingly endless life, I just realized one day, I’d never visit with him again.

With age comes perspective, the broader vision of experience, the knowing that a change that has happened signals an ending.

Blindness was such a moment. I knew and deeply felt that my life would never be the same again. I knew that huge pieces of me, the things that had defined me, were gone. yes, this was absolutely mind blowing and left me numb and depressed for months. Eventually, I began to adapt, to re-invent my life. Never once did my wife stop loving me or lose her cheer, even as she began losing her mind.

Now, some years into our altered journey, I wonder about our parallel disabilities. I wonder how being forced to surrender my previous active, get out and go everywhere lifestyle, has enabled me to be a more complete and compassionate partner for my wife as her mental disabilities have deteriorated.

Our mutual disabilities have forced us into a much simpler lifestyle than I’d imagined would ever be our case. Yet, in this simplicity, in this smallness, has come a richness, a deeper appreciation of the details of the world around us, little things we look forward to. Hummingbirds at the feeder. Greetings from neighbors as we walk by. the fragrant scents of Spring flowers. The sounds of children playing in the schoolyard. Roses outside our door.

Surrendering once seemed to signal a finality to good, an ending that no other beginning could replace.

But, indeed, there have come new beginnings, each with its own richness and so the wonder of being continues to amaze me.

tio stib

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