Pebbles & Pearls

Pebbles & Pearls

I credit an article entitled, "Magical Living" by Readicker-Henderson in the July/ August 2007 issue of AARP magazine for helping me to let go of so much toxic anger this semester that has resulted in my unshakeable joy, even in the midst of sorrow. I feel pretentious comparing my sufferings to someone with Crohn's disease, but I think his journey to self-discovery is universal.

For nearly twenty years, Readicker-Henderson was trying to learn how to deal with the fact that he had limitations that kept him from being the healthy man of his youth who could do anything he determined to do. It was not until he began to lose his eyesight and hopped a plane to Alaska to watch the beluga whales swim and hear them "honk and bark at each other" that he realized what his wife had been trying to tell him for years in order to cope with his illness: he needed to shut up more and just listen. In other words, not focus on what he couldn't do, but find the silver lining in his suffering and just listen. He had to learn to enjoy having to slow down and enjoy the world at a slower pace.

It was decades after his diagnosis before he was able to come to peace and find something positive amidst his pain. He credits his wife for showing him if it weren't for his illness that he would never have slowed down and appreciated his humanity and other beauties of life.

Readicker-Henderson says he is beginning to regain his eyesight, and of course, appreciates it now more than ever.

"It may take longer to walk down the beach...but that just gives me time to contemplate the white feathers on the egret," he says now of his illness. Rather than focusing on what he can't do, Readicker-Henderson says, "Each morning I wake up and think 'what's possible today', not 'what has to be done'."

Even though he came to a point where he accepted his lot in life and began to make the most of it, he still has days that he rages against his pain. I loved that he admitted that human side of himself. In that respect, he reminded me of Andrea Coller,winner of the 2008 Glamour non-fiction writing contest that I blogged about on July 19. He still makes mistakes, but his determination to be happy and as healthy as possible far outweighs the momentary desire to rage.