ShareThisAt any age and in every place, life is precarious. We take life for granted only at our peril. Is it any wonder that so many men and women turn to an invisible God to assist their life journey?
Living as we do at the edge of a national forest, my wife and I are daily witnesses to nature's glories and tragedies. Over the years, we have mended birds' wings, restored wounded squirrels and bunnies to health, and rescued groundhogs, chipmunks, stray dogs and snapping turtles. Years ago, we adopted two newborn kittens after their owner killed their mother and abandoned them to die.
Human rescues are equally poignant.
Consider the story of Robert McCrum, as detailed in his memoir, "My Year Off."
Robert and Sarah McCrum had been married only two months when tragedy struck in 1995. At 42, Robert was editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber, a successor in that lofty post to the late poet T.S. Eliot. The couple had conducted a yearlong, long-distance courtship between his base in London and hers in America, where she worked for The New York Times. They acknowledged afterward that they had barely known each other when they joined their destinies.
Sarah was in San Francisco on assignment and Robert alone in their home in England when he fell from his bed one morning, his left side completely paralyzed by a stroke, for which there had been no warning. Unable to reach the bedside phone with his good right hand, he crawled downstairs to another. Dragging his own dead weight downstairs took him 10 hours.
It was the couple's habit to phone each other frequently wherever each happened to be in the world. Sarah was puzzled why she couldn't get through to him. When Robert finally reached the phone, he called his mother nearby, who phoned the rescue squad, then reported to her daughter-in-law with typical English understatement, "I'm afraid that Robert is not feeling well." Sarah rushed across the ocean to his side, joining him for what would be a yearlong ordeal with his paralysis.
Accustomed to good health, Robert knew nothing about strokes. On being rescued, he felt only exhilaration that he was still alive. The air smelled sweeter and colors seemed brighter than he remembered. He had managed to stay alive, buoyed by his young wife's love.
But soon exhilaration turned to deep depression as he contemplated spending the rest of his life as an invalid, depending on others for the simple necessities of living. For days he was too weak to sit in a chair, even with the help of three nurses. He was mentally intact but physically devastated. Having edited books of some of the world's greatest authors, he was now reduced to communicating by spelling words with plastic letters like a child.
Sarah routinely wheeled him to the hospital chapel, where both of them prayed for recovery to a God they barely believed in. Over time, physical therapy enabled Robert to resume a career as associate editor of The Observer newspaper despite weakness and partial paralysis. In "My Year Off," he acknowledges having learned "that I am not immortal" and that "it is the convalescent who sees the world in its true colors."
(David Yount is the author of 14 books, including "Making a Success of Marriage" (Rowman & Littlefield). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount31(at)verizon.net.)
AMAZING GRACE
