Happy Healing

Happy New Year to all. 2018 is only hours old and already it has me off on a new tangent. Fact is, I did not plan to be writing this. The inspiration---if I may be bold enough to call it that----seemed to arrive out of the blue. I’ll bet that’s happened to you. The path you set out to follow, the one that seemed so right, even tempting, yesterday seems to have lost its appeal. I’m not sure where this detour will take me, but I am willing to spend a day or two to find out.

You see, I have spent years weaving ideas, some of them important and some rather trivial, into stories about late life. It has been an enjoyable challenge---telling what I believe are true-to-life tales about today’s seniors---wrapping the lives of those  friends I have created out of thin air in the values, virtues, and vices that seemed to me worth depicting. 

But I will admit there have been times along the way when I was tempted to forego the storytelling part, and instead take time to focus on those October/November values, virtues, and vices in greater depth than a fictional narrative allows. There are things that happen to us every day---things we too often let pass without notice. With that in mind I decided that for the next few weeks I will concentrate my blogging efforts on recalling the lessons learned in those special moments and how blessed I am to have had them in my lives.

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If you are a late-lifer like me, chances are you view the world from the relative quiet of an October/November perch. From there we sometimes revisit the times and events that shaped our lives. In our more reflective moments we may even consider which of our efforts have been worthy and worthwhile, and which have been a waste of time.

That certainly holds true for this old guy, who claims to tell stories about folks living out their October years. As I said before, of late I have felt less committed to telling those stories, and more inclined to dwell on the hard-learned realities they were meant to illustrate. Having spent a lifetime learning those lessons, perhaps it is not surprising that I want to explore some of the more important ones in depth, without the distraction of weaving them into a story.

That’s what I hope today’s post will be---an in-depth look at one of those realities we have dealt with for a lifetime, but have perhaps never given the attention it deserves. Hopefully by the time we are done you will have spent a few minutes remembering the ways you and your life have been touched by this bit of magic. Whether you consider it a virtue or a vice, it is something everyone of us has experienced, and been thankful for.

At this stage of the game I want to focus on what seems to me the heart of the matter---the handful of lessons that make their way into my thoughts when I leave the door opened a crack. That is exactly what happened a couple nights ago, when a particular notion, or more precisely a particular word, caught my attention.

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The word in question was “Healing,” a plain, but powerful, word that everyone can relate to. In the course of our lifetime each of us has been healed many times, in many ways. Truth is, we are constantly in the process of being healed, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so. In any case, for reasons I still don’t understand, my midnight thoughts settled on that seemingly unremarkable word, and a rather remarkable truth I don’t remember considering before---that being healed is one of life’s great blessings. 

Some of the best moments of my life, and yours too, have been times of healing, when we are made well and wholeness has been restored. You know the feeling. Having endured a time of infirmity or deprivation, you are restored to your allotted degree of health and wholeness. That welcome reprieve can arrive in many forms---physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual to name a few. But whatever the burden that has been lifted from your shoulders, the resulting wholeness has qualified as healing.

Like I said, it is a good word, one of many lurking behind those mind doors. There are so many interesting possibilities to choose from---words and ideas I have explored in my stories. I look forward to dwelling on some of the others in future posts---topics like ‘life choices made,’ ‘what is really important,’ ‘starting over,’ ‘family and friends,’ ‘trials and temptation,’ ‘lingering hatred,’ or the old standby ‘true love.’ It is hard to know why, with all those candidates waiting to be explored, it was ‘Healing’ that captured my thoughts the other night, but it did.

So, as I put my thoughts on paper I hope you will take time to refer to your own moments of healing and restoration. I invite you to consider your personal experience---comparing your insights on the universal reality of healing to mine. After all, healing is an important part of life at any age, but especially old age.

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To begin with, I submit that our word-of-the-day---Healing---describes one of life’s greatest blessings. It is also an incredibly versatile word, that can be used in many different ways, to mean many different things. But in every instance it implies ‘making healthy’ or ‘returning to a higher degree of wholeness.’

We most often think of ‘healing’ in terms of physical health. We sometimes refer to health care professions as the ‘healing arts.’ And thankfully they are all that and more. Everyone of us can cite examples how healing has restored health and wholeness to ourselves and loved ones. 

Still, we understand that ‘being healed’ is not the same as ‘being cured.’ Our October/November world is full of people like me who have had more than one brush with cancer or some other life-threatening condition, and been returned to a satisfying and functional lifestyle---without being ‘cured.’

Still, whether our search for physical healing has led us to health-care professionals, faith-based spiritual gurus, or sincere thanks for a fortunate genetic inheritance---at one time or another each of us has sensed the comforting warmth of having been made well again.

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We realize too that those moments of blessed healing will not last forever. The time will come, tomorrow or ten years from now, when some form of misfortune will once again have us wishing and praying for a new round of healing. Yet, we must not allow that blunt realization to lessen our gratitude for the welcome healing we have experienced in times past.

We are, after all, a vulnerable species. As long as we live our need for restoration, in one form or another, will never end. Beyond that, we know by now that late-life healing is a relative thing. No matter how well the bones heal or the new knee works I will never dunk a basketball again. (Not that I ever could.) I know by now that October/November ‘wholeness’ is at best a mental judgment, a willingness to accept a level of renewal in keeping with the rest of my late-life existence. Truth is, by this time of life it seems we are always healing in one way or another.

For example, Roma’s pacemaker arrived as a mechanical means of coping, not curing. My new round of immunology therapy is simply the next step in an ongoing cancer coping journey. On the very afternoon I started to create my first notes about healing, our daughter Amy lay in a hospital bed, recovering from the ordeal of donating a kidney---itself the very definition of a blessed healing act.

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Healing, however, can mean more than restoring a broken or infirmed body. Some of our most satisfying healing experiences, the ones that have touched us most deeply, had nothing to do with mended bones, restored organs, or renewed health. The same sense of ‘being made whole’ that we usually associate with physical healing applies just as well to other facets of our being. There are innumerable non-physical conditions on our October/November plate---vital elements of our being---that may need restoration and wholeness. Truth is, there are some infirmities the army of caregivers, who stand ready to serve us with their skills and pills, cannot heal.

By this time of life we may be alone or isolated, perhaps dwelling on wrong turns taken in the past, or ‘what if’ moments we managed to misplay. We may be in need of another, more personal, sort of healing---something beyond physical restoration. Perhaps it is a hard-to-define blend of emotional, mental, and spiritual infirmity that has us seeking, in our own way, a more satisfying sort of non-physical healing. Hopefully by this time of life we have cultivated our own means of addressing those intangible healing possibilities.

And for some there are more intimate and personal sorts of ‘unwholeness’ begging to be healed. Relational health---getting along with family and friends---is an important part of a ‘whole’ life. If that is a problem for us, perhaps it is time to mend the relational bridges we have burned over the years. At any time of life, but especially in our October/November years, restored and revitalized personal relationships are a most notable sort of healing.

And then, of course, there is perhaps the most vital and satisfying form of restoration---Spiritual Healing--the soul-deep wholeness we all seek, no matter what we call it. There will be no miracle drugs, space-age cures, or other short cuts to help us accomplish that. A million books have been written on the subject, each claiming to show the way to spiritual health. Yet in the end it is our personal inner compass, not someone else’s advice, that will guide us on that most personal of faith journeys.

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Finally, as you can certainly see by now, I am not here to tell you anything you don’t already know. I do hope, however, that a few minutes spent revisiting the notion of ‘healing’ will help each of us shine a light on our own blessings of healing and wholeness---and perhaps renew our sense of awe at how fortunate we have been, in ways we don’t always stop to appreciate.

In the course of our lifetime we have been healed over and over. But it is not our passing acknowledgment of that healing which matters. Instead, it is our expression of gratitude that validates how good life has been to us.