Ruthie has had a very tough year. It has been approximately 8 months since she was first run over by a pickup truck, suffered two broken ankles, one which healed on its own, and one which later needed surgery. She was cleared to go back to work in February and lasted only one night. It hurt her to walk. An MRI discovered that the top of her right foot (the surgery ankle) was broken. Another long period of healing and finally cleared to go back to work in May, only to last 4 days when it became too painful to walk. Another MRI revealed that she has osteoporosis in her lower back and multiple fractures in her lower spine and cracked vertebrae. It has been one setback after another and she is quite depressed about it. She has finally made the decision to retire at the beginning of August. Hopefully, her back will be more healed than broken by that time.
This poem is about God incarnate within others. So often when we are in the midst of crises in our lives, whether it be health, or work related, or relationship, we wonder, “Where are you God?” We are not alone in this. In both Mark’s and Matthew’s Passion accounts, Jesus in Gethsemane calls on God to assist him and God remains silent. Jesus’ last words in both of those Passion accounts, “My God, my God why have you forsaken (or abandoned) me?” is a cry of one who feels abandoned by God and is perplexed by God’s seeming absence. Jesus was no stranger to the human condition.
Well I know these feelings of abandonment. A simple hip replacement turned into a medical nightmare when a MRSA infection set in that would not be cured. After 8 weeks the artificial hip would have to be removed. The normal antibiotic for MRSA came close to killing me. I went 5 1/2 months without a left hip as infectious disease doctors tried to find antibiotics in combination that would kill the MRSA but not kill me. It would take 3 more surgeries on the same area (it got to the point where surgical staples were no longer effective. The surgeon used 50 lb weight fish line as sutures toward the end.) before finally I would receive a second hip, 8 months after I had received the first artificial hip and begin to walk again.
It is from out of this dark and frightening time that I address this poem to my beloved, Ruth.
FINDING GOD
Eight months.
Has it been that long?
Chair bound, waiting,
bones knit slowly,
far slower than
the many sweaters
you have crocheted.
Healing and wholeness
seemingly, just out of reach.
I remember my crucible.
Eleven weary, hapless months,
six of which hopping around
like Long John Silver
cutting deals with God,
groping blindly for
God’s presence, wondering,
asking, “Where are you?”
as the infectious disease
doctors groped for
a cure for my MRSA.
Within the silence
was the answer I sought.
God was present
all the time.
God present
in your touch.
God’s comfort
in your words.
The last face I beheld
before slipping into
surgical sleep
was yours.
The first face I beheld
as I awakened
into the haze of post-op
was yours.
It was always you,
God present to me.
At home, in the waiting,
those sterile rooms
of hospitals and
doctors offices,
the long car rides
to appointments.
Always God present
to me in you, in
your smile, in the
changing of many
surgical dressings,
God in you for me.
Now it is my turn
to be God for you.
(c) 2019, Robert Charles Wagner. All rights reserved.
