Making the Connection to Reality

I do a lot of thinking these days. Not the way I was trained to think in college, analytically, but more like I used to think as a child. Playfully. Inquisitively. And sometimes even deeply. Before that voice in my soul was stilled, or at least hidden away for so many years, I used to dream and wonder about things, not the least of which was how everyone and everything is connected in this wonderful world God created for us.

It’s odd how the past can haunt you like that. It’s the kind of thinking that can wake a person up at night—like tonight, as I write this. It’s a voice returning to me again after so many years have passed. It’s a voice I have suppressed too long.

The need to connect with others can run very deep. It’s often a lot stronger than a lot of other emotions but oddly enough in today’s world it frequently becomes submerged in a sea of cacophony, or even monotony, over the many years of one’s life. I’ve found this to be correct at least over the life I’ve lived, and it is truly ironic to me. And then something happens, some trigger or stimulus that brings a person back into a real reality, in lieu of the false one we often live from day to day. It pulls us away from the numbness and emptiness of a reality that without such a new perspective we view as perhaps crude in nature, and even false in so many ways. The redeeming stimulus may be an original yuletide story from a cherished aunt that touches your soul. It may be a phone message left on your answering machine from a brother you’ve loved dearly all your life, but now for some reason seldom visit. Or, it may be a touching story of love enduring through tragedy, that at least for a moment or two, or even longer, touches your soul to the very core.

One such story is the story of Mary. Mary is not her real name but her story is true. It’s not the kind of story that would make the evening news. But its truth is what really matters, and for that reason, and whatever other reason, I immediately felt the connection.

Mary is the wife of a colleague at work, whom I’ve never met. A week before last Christmas Mary discovered that a cancer in her shoulder was spreading to her lungs, and in order to save her life the doctors advised that her left arm and shoulder be amputated immediately. So, in midst of all the Christmas preparation, Mary left her husband and two small children and suffered the loss.

The night before Mary was to go to the hospital her husband found her taking a long, final look at the beautiful wedding ring that within a few days would no longer grace her ring finger. She then reflected on how the love and commitment she felt towards her husband and family was so much greater than the wearing of a wedding band, its most tangible symbol. But it was only a symbol.

In her melancholy, Mary found that she could say goodbye to that symbol, but had no need to say farewell to what it truly meant to her. She realized, as so many of us do especially in the autumn of our lives, that the intangible gifts of love and friendship have their own reality, a reality that is much greater and stronger than physical representations or symbols.

Mary is back with her family now and the bonds between her husband, children and family, their friends and even work colleagues, are much stronger than before. What this and many other stories like it have taught me is that God gives us these reminders to help us connect and bond with each other in ways that are not possible otherwise.

We have a need and a responsibility to reinforce these connections any way we can, in positive and productive venues. I am grateful for Mary and her family, my talented aunt and my brother who cares enough to call once in a while. As the years go by, it is these remarkable albeit intangible gifts that blossom and endure, growing eternally solid in their strength. Tangible symbols simply tarnish and fade.