Missing Rex

I hear that the New York Yankees are going to the World Series this year. My brother Rex would have been so excited. That was his team from the time we were young kids. He had the cards to so many of the greats during that time: Micky Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, and other names that I have since forgotten. He and his friend Bob were both big into trading, and they had the best of the best. That was long before people saved things like baseball cards, thinking they might be worth something someday. The fact that my sister Dawn later attached those same baseball cards to the spokes of her bicycle with clothespins, reproducing the flapping sound of a motorcycle as she cruised down Chestnut Street confirms that. Even if those cards were still tucked away in a drawer somewhere in the confines of our home in Weston's Mills, they obviously were no longer in the pristine condition that collectors demand. But they're not tucked away anywhere. From what I heard and understand, when my brother tried to track them down several years later, the truth was told. They had gone the way of the trash bin. 

Rex passed away not quite six months ago after a long hard battle with Parkinson's. Eventually a nursing home had become the only option for him. No one loved sports more than my brother, and even in his new setting he stayed engaged with all of them, via the large television screens in the visitor's lounge, propped up in his wheelchair. I can picture him now, so thrilled at the prospect of his team at the World Series for the first time in fifteen years. Yeah, and it would be all he'd want to talk about over the next several days.  Rex loved to talk. 

I don't remember grieving during the early days after Rex left us. More than anything, I was relieved and grateful that he had finally escaped his broken body, his spirit was free. He was a man of deep faith, and I knew the day would come when I would see him again. And that's why what happened a few days ago took me by surprise.

I saw them hanging from a rack at our local Big Lots. Army men. You know, the little plastic ones that stand a couple inches tall. And I suddenly saw my brother as a kid with his collection on our living room floor, lining them up for battle. Without warning, my throat began to tighten, and my eyes were starting to feel wet. I turned towards Larry, not standing far from me. My voice caught as I pointed at the packages of plastic soldiers and spoke of my brother and one of his favorite pastimes. I missed him. And I grieved.

It's funny, if my brother had any other collections when we were kids, I don't remember them. His baseball cards and army men are the two things that stand out. So, I bought a package in honor of him. And though I've not watched a baseball game all season, I intend to catch what I can in the coming days. I want to do it for him. For Rex. And yes, I'll be rooting for the Yankees. 

Seeing Clearly

She was hardly into the eye exam when she stopped, raised the testing device and looked directly at me. "It's time," she said. "This isn't working. You need the surgery."  I knew I had cataracts, but during my exam several months earlier Dr. Rose indicated that it would most likely be a few years down the road. I had noticed, however, that the glasses last prescribed to me weren't helping much, especially when it came to driving after the sun had set. Except for the more familiar roads, I avoided the areas I didn't know, even having to decline invites to a couple of special birthday celebrations.  

I was referred to an ophthalmologist who many consider to be the best in this part of Alabama. But still, I was not happy at the prospect of spending the next several weeks preparing for the upcoming surgery which would mean several trips to Montgomery and a regimen of steroid and antibiotic drops. The second eye, scheduled to be done four weeks after the first, made this whole venture feel like a very long inconvenience.

Once I let it be known, a bit begrudgingly, that I was scheduled for cataract surgery, the stories began. It seemed like everyone knew someone or had gone through the procedure themselves with nary a negative word. Ben from church was especially encouraging. "My one regret is that I put it off as long as I did," he said. "My vision would be so much better if I hadn't waited." And then he smiled. "You'll be glad you had it done. You'll see. Things will look a lot brighter."  

It was a few hours after the first of my old lens had been removed that I saw it. The yellow haze that I had become so accustomed to and had considered normal, was now replaced with a white light, accentuating the colors and bringing into sharper focus everything surrounding it.  Over the next few weeks as I continued with the steroid drops, slowly tapering off to that one last drop, I was actually anticipating my next surgery date, excited at the prospect of seeing out of both eyes what I had experienced in the one.

During those first weeks after my second surgery, I would still feel the urge to remove a contact or take off my glasses by raising my hand towards an eye or the bridge of my nose, something I'd been doing instinctively for 60 years. It's understandable. I was ten years old when I got my first pair of glasses, so I'd been living with blurry vision most of my life. Old habits are hard to break, but as time passed, I found myself reaching less and less for something that is no longer there. 

Except for three or four pairs of cheap reading glasses lying around the house that I picked up at the local Dollar Tree, corrective lenses are now a thing of the past. The bathroom drawer that held my contact supplies, including the dozens of lens cases that had accumulated over the years, is now empty.  Rummaging through another drawer, I gathered up the glasses I had stored there and dropped them into a container at the library designated for the local Lion's Club. 

Looking back on all this, I didn't realize how dull the lenses in my eyes had become. It wasn't until they were replaced with the new ones that I understood why my optometrist had made the decision to send me on to someone who could make things so much better. What I had seen as a time-consuming inconvenience has turned out to be one of the best decisions ever made for me. Yes, made for me, because I know if it had been mine to make, I would have settled for the easier option, to do nothing. So, I got what I needed most, first through a doctor who gave me a gigantic push and then through a friend who said the exact thing I needed to hear. "You'll be glad you got it done. Things will look so much brighter."

There's a passage in Scripture that talks about not seeing things clearly. Different versions use words like dimly, darkly, blurred and cloudy. The Message describes it like "squinting in a fog, peering through a mist." That's exactly how I felt driving after dusk before the surgery. Barely able to see the lines defining the various lanes, I would only travel the roads most familiar to me. But with my new lenses I can now face the challenges of night-time driving with greater confidence. And yes, there are places that I can now travel that I would never have dared venture to when I was seeing through my yellowed, dingy eyes. I just didn't know how bad things had gotten until I was willing to let the Ophthalmologist make the cuts to remove the old and replace with the new. 

I need to add a footnote here. I started to write this post over a year ago but couldn't finish it. When it came to my conclusion, I drew a blank. I didn't know how to end it. Until now. After months of sitting in its draft form, I'm ready to finish what I started all those months ago. Today I called and talked to my brother who lies in a nursing home in New York. Parkinson's has ravaged his body, now broken beyond all repair, and he has very little time left. As I spoke to him, just the smallest slit of an eye opened, acknowledging that he was aware of me, even from afar. 

I know that not too many days from now he will open his eyes once again. But unlike what he has seen on this side of eternity, his now perfect eyes will be taking in sights that we who are still looking through the "glass darkly" can hardly imagine or think. That yellowed, dim, dark, cloudy lens, now removed from my brother's eyes will let him experience the light that comes from God Himself, allowing him to look upon the face of the one he has loved and lived for most of his life.