Friday, March 02, 2007

Does love have a limit?

Dear Jan:

While I am re-starting the blogging after a month, honestly, I enjoyed the vacation. I didn't know if I wanted to continue blogging, partly because I have no idea who reads this blog anymore and partly because I don't know how to convey the emotional and mental exhaustion I am feeling these days. But then this morning I reminded myself that one of the main reasons of this blog was the fact that it was a great help for me to write things out, this way I clarified thoughts and feelings and I had a chance to see facts in perspective. So, here I go again.

There's been huge progress in every area touched by the aneurysm. You move better your whole right side, your energy last a bit longer and your speech improves in spurts. Everyone who has seen you comments on these improvements. At the same time, you also take some steps back now and then.

This blog should stop right here. Everyone would be happy to know that you are going forward.

However, you say repeatedly that I have to say the truth. And the truth is that life is more complicated than it looks.

Some days everything seems clear and I can see that your convalescence is not permanent, that one day you will just come back to the functioning level you had before the aneurysm. You will be the bright woman with a clear speech and a sharp mind that captured my attention. You yourself repeat this vision when the doctors state that what you got back at the one year mark is as good as it gets. I remember how irate you were after the meeting with your neurosurgeon; you said, "Obviously, he doesn't know me". To be sure, in the last six months, you have made progress against all prognoses mostly based on your character. Tough as nails, you have refused to let anyone "box in" your hopes and continue the uphill battle to regain speech, reading, writing and movement functions. On days like these I just love you extravagantly.

Other days are very dark, full of pain and tears, of moaning when there are no more words to express the isolation, depression and sadness that Aphasia forces upon you. I say something and you hear something else, you say something and a minute later you change what you said, but can't remember the change and feel harassed if I point out the change to you. I feel like we are speaking to each other in languages we don't mutually understand. On days like this I wonder where reality ends and madness starts. On days like this, I feel like the most insensitive man on the planet, a little ogre that is more interested in defending himself than in listening carefully to you and giving you the time you need. In days like this you just put on your snowsuit and walk out. It is in days like this when you say that you would like to die and end all this pain, or just go home to your sister’s, your brother’s, your dad’s or your mom’s. And then, there is the realization that this is your home! That this suffering is part of our life for now! That any happines we may have in the future will only be complete because of what we are going through now.

So, I ask myself: is there a limit to how much you can love? Is there a limit to how far I will love? Does love have a limit or an end?

I think the apostle Paul already answer this question:

The Way of Love (1Corinthians 13)

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.

Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be cancelled.



-Fede

1 comment:

FC said...

I can't post any blogs. There seems to be an automatic link to the "new version" of teh blogger, but it does not let me find the old one.