Passing 100

I have been posting on this blog for over a year and a half.  Two posting ago was my one hundreth posting.  Many things have happened to slow me down the past few weeks, though not by choice.  I have been dealing with what has been a debilitating medical situation since the begining of August.  It started off as vertigo and has now reached the point where I will be going into surgery this coming week.  It seems that my rebelious sinus's have rebelled and have filled with polyps to the point that I have trouble hearing and nose breathing is an impossibility and most importantly, my brain pan is in jeopordy of being compromised.  All is well though, it is a routine surgery and will promise to be life changing as my dear brother puts it.

What I reflect on though is perspective.  I have a dear friend, a mother and grandmother to dear souls who just had surgery in hopes of saving her life from a cancer that is determined to take it. I was at a recent gathering at her house.  There I was, sitting miserable, but with a near certainty that things will be back to normal, being consoled whithout regard to self by a person facing the possibility of death.

I was asked by a dear friend the other day if I was afraid.  I was surprised and yet grateful for the question.  The answer is yes.  I remember a doctor once advising a person close to me that any time someone wants to take a knife to you the question that needs to be asked is "is this worth the worse case scenario?"  

To add to this woe is the additional tests of each one of my three children and their various needs upon me at this time.  I fast see them slipping away from me and there will be a hole in my life when they are no longer present on a day to day level.  However, their needs are immediate and regardless of the feelings I have, I need to be there for them.  It is because of this and my faith in Bahá'u'lláh that I seem to be in high spirits regardless of my surrounding tests. Physically it is like being submersed in water for two months now.  Try drinking water with your nose completely closed or worse yet, have the pressure from almost all available cavities in your head full of bad guys.  Yes in spite of this, I have found an ability to rise above it for the most part and tackle the various challenges such as repairing a dryer, cleaning a house, working and trying to be as good a father as I can be.

On the postings that have preceded this one.  I hope to have conveyed life as I see it.  Many of my poems start out with the difficulties of tests that surround us and the hope and final overcoming of these tests.  In the Bahá'í sacred texts as well as those of other Faiths, we are told that it is through tests that we grow and our soul progresses.  We are destined to repeat the tests until we overcome them and learn and grow from them.  But it is never ended.  Once we have learned a new lesson on patience it is tempting to feel that we have learned patience.  However, the reality is that we have learned patience to a certain level.  Now the new and stronger lessons start until we overcome and reach a new understanding of patience, or whatever other lesson it is we have to learn from.

I will be bed ridden for a few days this week and hopefully not too full of pain to prevent me from writing some more poetry.  While I know that my friends will be praying for me, I hope that instead, we can think of my friend Betsy and her struggle with cancer and those dear Bahá'í's being persecuted in Iran.  Here is to the next one hundred postings, until next time.......