Sweet Dreams

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This is a middle chapter in a book called: “A Letter From Home: “ -- a book ideally intended for a Christian audience, for young adults living away from home for the first time -- whether in college or in military service -- but welcoming also anyone who’s just been away…


Sweet Dreams…

A Letter From HOME:

For this letter I’m gonna need you to be patient. I’m gonna throw a lot of little stories at you, and as you whisk your way through, it might feel a bit disjointed. Yet I promise you a central theme. I’ll spell it all out later.

* * *

Not too long ago I caught a rerun of my very favorite M*A*S*H episode ever. In this episode, the surgeons and staff had all been hit with a massively long and grueling stint in the O.R., so they were sleep deprived, and forced to grab only quick catnaps as they could. This episode, then, was built around each of their dreams…

Enter Major Charles Emerson Winchester III: Wearing full tux and tails, he majestically appears in the operating room and begins performing great feats of magic before his enthralled and enthusiastic peers. He pulls rabbits from hats, flowers from nowhere, and just the right card at just the right time… His usual cast of fans/coworkers applaud wildly! Buoyed by their admiration, he confidently continues.

Then from nowhere, a severely wounded soldier appears right in front of him, bleeding, drowning in his injuries, gurgling, …straining for breath. The crowds attention is riveted to the soldier now; everyone eyes teared with compassion are pleading, expecting Charles to QUICK! -- DO SOMETHING!

Winchester speeds up his magical repertoire, trying feverishly now, perspiration building, yet the soldier’s suffering only worsens. He tries harder... the young patient dies.

Dr. Winchester wakes up screaming!

* * *

I have this friend who’s become a political activist in the cause of enlarging life’s mainstream to include disabled people. He is such an inspiration! It’s Michael who taught me just how critical it is that people look deeper, beyond disability, on to capability, when they glance upon persons handicapped; and also about just how rarely that happens…

You see, Michael wasn't always handicapped. When I knew him in high school he had everything going for him -- he was whole and robust, and athletic, and he had this magnetic smile and zest for living that was highly contagious, that made him the heart and center of every gathering.

But then there was this accident -- a diving accident -- and my very dear friend broke his neck. For years after he was totally paralyzed, dead from the neck down, helpless and completely dependant upon the good will of others for his every need and comfort. How incredibly humiliating for a man who’d grown so accustomed to self-reliance; and who -- just like the rest of us -- took so much for granted for so long.

Helplessly, I watched what happened to him. I knew his utter despondency, which, for a whole person would have been suicidal. And this bleakness lasted…, and lasted. Despair. Isolation. And he was crippled on the inside too, paralyzed with WHY-questions: “Why me? “ “ Why now? “

Slowly time passed… And all during that time when he was not strong enough to sustain hope for himself, still, others carried it for him.

Michael spent a couple of years in rehab hospitals and oh-so-gradually began regaining sensation throughout most of his body plus most of his upper body mobility. Today he’s considered “paraplegic” -- paralyzed from the waist down. Today he’s wheelchair mobile.

Anyway, I remember this little Tammy Baker quote I heard once. Paraphrased from memory, it says that this life’s toughest trials only make us “bitter” or “better“, and that the only difference between the two is the little “ i “ .

More than thirty years have passed since Michael’s accident. Today he lives in California. He went back to school and is in sight of receiving his doctorate degree in psychology. And his work is in helping newly handicapped teens and young adults over the emotional hurdles of fury and despair, helping them to stop feeling so fragile. He helps kids get back to rough-and-rowdy, as they rediscover fun. He takes young people in chairs out and plays baseball, basketball, football with them. Some even go sky-diving and white water rafting.

But the thing I most want you to know about my friend is that he is STILL whole and robust, still athletic, and he STILL has this magnetic zest for living. Fact is, he has everything going for now, too; everything except his legs. Yet, he says, the accident only made him better, deeper; that, lacking before the accident, it gave his life a strong sense of purpose, direction.

Yet at a glance, he’s just a guy in a wheelchair. How quickly we look away…

* * *

It’s the day she’s always dreamed of and Margaret Houlihan is looking lovely. Gowned in white, she was just married and is being led by her groom from the ceremony to their honeymoon bed. Their love is boundless, and so, symbolically, their suite is outdoors… The moment is theirs -- blissfully tender, passionate! -- as they lock arms, and eyes, and kiss…

Yet abruptly this precious time together is stolen. A command of soldiers passes and her groom, suddenly duty-driven, gives her a quick goodbye kiss on the cheek and -- though torn -- departs. Margaret’s aghast, confused, terribly grieved. Numbly she watches him leave.

Then, glancing behind her, she sees that soldiers now occupy her marriage bed -- so many bleeding, suffering men, all in dire need. Frustration rushes her. She wakes with a start!

* * *

Father Mulcahy is Pope! Like a sudden lottery win, his secret dream-of-dreams has come true! And it’s a moment to be savored -- such a wondrous and magical time, as he’s carried by chariot through the same M*A*S*H unit he once served. Still boyish, yet he behaves with well-rehearsed dignity -- looking and acting quite the Pontifical-part. He nods and waves modestly as familiar faces pass.

A service gathers and he presides. With the Bible opened before him, he begins a reading, yet is rudely interrupted as a single drop of blood splatters the page.

Undeterred, he continues, yet it happens again, and again…!

His glance, then, follows the bloody trail to the crucifix right behind him where he sees a soldier attached there, nailed to the cross of our Lord.

Suddenly everything he’d planned to say, wanted to say, looked forward to saying, pales by comparison. He is grieved to the core. He wakes in cold sweat…

* * *

My Mom has a significant hearing loss, which, for all practical purposes, means that, she’s totally deaf in one ear plus extremely impaired in the other, yet, with her hearing aid turned way up, she can almost hear normally from her one good ear. Except…

There’s a whole host of noises that we filter normally, that blast and screech at her. Children are prone to making these noises. Also, crowds can be confusing for her because, hearing from just the one ear, it’s hard for her to tell where sounds are coming from. This makes her feel awkward; and slow… She gets very anxious. Too, some sounds come across louder than others; some more clearly; some people’s voices just tend to muffle…

My Mom withdraws socially; she feels so awkward with unaware people. Yet for those of us who know her well, it’s no big thing. We gravitate towards her good ear. We protect her from screech as best we can. We understand. It really isn’t hard to do.

Yet one thing just amazes me: Once I asked her why, when the kids are loud and rowdy, or as often as other noises begin to feel uncomfortable, why doesn’t she just turn down her aid? You know now what she told me? She said that a lot of people confuse deafness with silence, but that that’s not always true. That without her aid she hears a terrible roaring. --That it’s maddening! And that it’s her aid that magnifies other sounds, effectively drowning out the roar. I had no idea!

* * *

Hawkeye Pierce was back in med school where he had a very strict professor who caught him cat-napping in class.

His professor slapped him with rapid-fire questions, for which the stunned and disoriented Hawkeye had no response. For this instructor, however, apology wasn’t enough; instead he demanded his pound of flesh.

Hawkeye detached and gave up his right arm…

Yet again the professor hounded him, and another round of rapid-fire questions met the same dazed expression, the same him-haw apology. The teacher, then, demanded his left arm also.

Hawkeye next found himself adrift in a row boat with no oars, helplessly floating along in a vast sea littered with arms and legs.

Again on solid ground, he stumbled upon an operating table. A suffering solider lay right before him, blocking his path. They were completely isolated in their jungle surroundings; just he and the man who needed him, yet without arms Hawkeye was helpless -- even with all of his learning, there was just nothing he could do! The enormity of his situation was crushing! Hawkeye woke up screaming!

* * *

Okay, I promised you some web-work, some links to tie this all together. So here goes…

First, I included the clips from the M*A*S*H episode because, as I watched it recently, it occurred to me that the nightmares Winchester, Margaret, Father Mulcahy, and Hawkeye all had reflect the feelings that cripple us when we’re approached by handicapped people. Think about it! We feel incredible frustration in that we cannot take away their hardship. Nothing we do will relieve it, and nothing we have in our experience compares. Just imagining their daily struggle is distressing.

Too, we’re such an antiseptic society. We don’t deal well with anything out of the norm, beyond our own daily dramas. If it takes a special effort, then, why bother? Things could get messy… And we are all so very busy; it’s probably past-time to move on…

I’ve also shared with you brief stories about people I know who struggle with disabilities. Somehow, I’d like for you to begin to glimpse small parts of this life from behind their eyes.

The real barriers that handicap handicapped people the most are basically two-fold: The fact that we don’t take the time to understand the simple nuts-and-bolts differences between our lives and theirs, and then, our casual dismissal of them. Oh, yeah, handicapped people are a part of our daily landscape, but think how quickly we look away. We do… We all do... And that means employers, too; structural engineers and building planners. Bottom line -- all kinds of barriers (physical and non) hold back all kinds of people with all kinds of gifts (as well as problems) from reaching out and achieving full potential.

People with disabilities are endowed with capabilities, too. And until we somehow look deeper -- until we invite, and take time, understand and get to know; until we simply begin to relate person-to-person, all our stalwarts stand, and all our fears, our frustrations -- OUR nightmares! -- continue to collectively cripple us all.

Yet, that is NOT God’s way! We’re all called into a completion that can only be achieved when we reach out and really get to know each other, and then, over time and through a caring, bonded connection, slowly work to become each others complement. You know the precept, how the Body of Christ is composed: Where one is weak, another is strong…

It might help to remember that handicapped people are …just people. Too, that nightmares are nothing more than our sub-conscious efforts to tinker through and fix areas of our lives that still need work.

* * *

That’s it for now. Until later, then, I wish you sweet dreams --