The Eye of the Beholder

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! 2 Corinthians 5

I sat in the waiting room. We had been told the whole procedure would be about an hour-and-a-half or two hours. If there was a clock, I don’t remember seeing it. If I had seen one, I’m sure the second hand would have moved at the pace of a saber-toothed slug sliming its way through sludge.

The room had a monitor displaying the stage each patient was in. Yellow was pre-op. Purple was intra-op. The post-op color was immaterial as it never seemed her number would ever leave stage-yellow.

There was no use asking the receptionist for updates, although she assured us at check-in that I could certainly do that. I could come over and ask any time what was happening – but I also knew she would look at the monitor and say, “Oh, she’s still in pre-op.” I can read, so asking would have been a waste of breath. Also, the one time I thought about asking I looked up and saw she wasn’t at the desk, so ….

I scanned the periodicals displayed in the waiting room. Leafing through People Magazine, I couldn’t help but note how few celebrities I know these days. Oh sure, there was an article about Brad. Brad Pitt. My God, he’s an old man now! A grizzled veteran of the silver screen. Hmm. Does he know how to fly-fish anymore?

I passed a bit more time working the Crosswords in various issues they had lying around and marveled at how few names I could identify from the clues. Heck, I have no idea what many of today’s shows are, let alone who is in them. If Brad Pitt’s old, what on earth does that make me?

I gently shook my head in amazement – slowly so nothing would snap, crackle, or pop. I have to be careful these days; only a couple months ago I jumped to a conclusion and had months of physical therapy to undo the injury that resulted!

I set down the third of my partially filled crossword puzzles (having given someone else a decent start to finish up) and glanced again at the monitor. The list of patients dwindled one-by-one as their colors shifted through the informational colors, each disappearing as they were discharged to the care of their guardians.

Guardian. Bemused, I thought to myself: Hey, that’s me! I’ve been reduced to a function, a purpose. It was strange being referred to as a guardian when, for well over three decades I’d been known by the more familiar role: husband. But the world we live in has changed. We never know who’s going to care for those who are brought in for “procedures.” Husband, wife, neighbor, lover, partner, son, daughter, friend, care-giver. Relatives are often too far away or working.

Alongside the monitor was a television tuned to a home improvement channel. I was ignoring the program for the most part, but noted that the show’s fixer-upper duo had helped a couple walk through three homes, bought one, completely gutted and rehabbed it, and then went into the whole “Reveal” production – and did it all faster than my wife’s own pre-op. I looked over at the monitor – Yellow.

Aargh! Maybe this is what drives people to entertain thoughts of murder and mayhem (or at least piracy). But then, when my soul began to quiver with a certain loss of hope, it happened.

The line within which my wife’s number was embedded changed hues: Yellow went to Purple (Intra-Op), to Lime (Recovery), to Green (Preparing to Go Home)! At green, they came to get me.

“Are you Keith? Your wife is doing fine and just about ready to go home. Come with me and we’ll let you see her.”

On the outside I was all calm, cool, and collected. On the inside, though, I was Jell-O after the hot water is added to the mix – quite sloshy. Her eye was patched (and I thought she was sorely in need of a parrot), but her cataract surgery had been uneventfully routine.

For God, and for the skills of her doctor and the surgical team, Eye am thankful. As St. Paul said, “See, everything is new” (and clear, now) here in this, our valley.