Distortions

Above my loveseat

When Greg got sick, over seven years ago, the world went cubist.  The buildings all slanted, people's heads dropped below their shoulders and twisted, trees looked like they had been watered with vodka and were swaying under the influence. Everything was slow motion and asymmetrical. The universe was out of whack.

I remember doing simple, ordinary things like grocery shopping. I wondered why all those people in the frozen foods didn't look depressed. Didn't they know what lay ahead? Where was their anguish? What was wrong with them? They should all be in therapy before they cracked, maybe find a way to get those misshapen faces back between the ears.

A few weeks ago I bought some vintage museum posters to hang on my walls. They're by Matisse and Braque and LaFarge. Impressionistic. They are soothing to me. A little surreal but not disturbingly so. Realistically so. The world isn't always "real". Things don't always appear as our reason tells us they should. You've probably noticed that rationality likes to jump the track.

Our pastor has been teaching a series on the book of Job. It may be the oldest manuscript in the Bible. The world hasn't really changed much since then. Read it and see if you don't identify, if not with Job, then with one of his three friends and confidants.

I hope you read "The Gift", a post on this blog on December 12. Greg's mother was diagnosed with leukemia the same year Greg was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  She fought a hard fight to stay with us but finally left this old world three months ago, just before Christmas. We grieved, but it all made sense. She had struggled for seven long years and was ready to go, as they say. It matched the Nocturne on my wall ... a  lone flower, muted and beautiful, open and expressive, but very still and shadowy....a hopeful sadness.

"Paper or plastic?"

Three weeks ago her beloved husband, Wally, began feeling ill on the golf course while visiting his son in Phoenix.  Brent was alarmed and called the paramedics since Wally had hardly been sick a day in his life. On Easter Sunday we will fly back to northwest Iowa to lay him to rest beside his wife.  They're saying he also died of leukemia, only a week after diagnosis. We are all in shock and disbelief. 

When I went to pick up some things at the downtown Publix, I noticed there was something not quite right about the cashier.  Guess she's been that way all along, but I'm just realizing it.....again.