In the Twinkling of an Eye

We know that our lives can change suddenly, “in the twinkling of an eye,” a truth that sets countless stories in motion, and yet when it actually happens to us, we stagger around as if trying to recover from a blow, trying to “regain our senses,” seeking that implicit orientation that allows us to proceed with “daily life.”

Early on Thursday morning a week ago, I was in the kitchen getting coffee started when I heard a terrible thud. There was no outcry. From the kitchen, up a very short flight of stairs, I arrived at the second floor of our tri-level house (built in the 1950s). From there a longer flight of stairs leads to the upper level, which includes the bedroom where my wife Wendy and I have slept since we bought this house in the summer of 1995, one year after we moved to Wheaton from Pasadena, California. Wendy was lying on her back on the landing at the foot of the stairs. She’d obviously had a bad fall; how it happened we don’t know.

I called our daughter Katy, youngest of our four, who lives with us (she moved back home about three years ago to help out as Wendy began to suffer from dementia, which had been slowly developing) and works nearby. She came home immediately, determined that we couldn’t get Wendy out to the car by ourselves, and asked one of our wonderful neighbors to help. We drove to the emergency room at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital, not far away.

Wendy spent almost a week in the hospital, receiving excellent care. The combination of great skill and knowledge and human kindness (not to mention a panoply of high-tech devices) was beyond what we could have expected. There had been a little bleeding on Wendy’s brain, but nothing extensive. The next step was for her to be transferred, via an ambulance, as the protocol required (I rode with her), to a rehab center not far away. Katy and Anna (our eldest, who had flown out from Missoula the day after Wendy’s fall) had checked out nearby facilities and picked this particular one—a good choice, we soon agreed. There, the plan is, she will recover enough mobility to allow her to come home.

When you get to a certain age, “falls” become one of the great hazards, potentially “life-changing,” and not in a positive direction. We celebrated Wendy’s seventy-seventh birthday in February; mine will follow in June. In September (Lord willing) we will mark our fifty-seventh anniversary. It is comforting to have those markers in mind, to be held in tension with a sense of fragility, vulnerability, uncertainty, and deep sadness that wells up suddenly with overpowering intensity. Nothing to do but pray, squeeze Wendy’s hand, kiss her yet again, and give thanks for Katy and Anna (and for Andrew and Mary as well, the other two of our four grown kids), for the dear friends who are helping in many ways, and for the care she is receiving from people who are both competent and kind.

I have never been so tired as I am now. I think of the many, many people, near and far, who are experiencing much greater pain and upheaval and misery. How do they manage to keep going? It must be a gift from God, even if not acknowledged as such. Who are the particular saints, dear Catholic friends, that come to mind in this connection? Over the years—even when Wendy and I were still in our twenties—some of our friends and acquaintances would refer to her as “St. Wendy”—a saint who also possesses a delightful sense of humor. She is the kindest person I have ever known, and I say that without prejudice. Please, dear readers, keep her and those of us close to her in your prayers.