Mortal Lessons

Dr. Richard Selzer, a physician, gives an account of the way love accepts and bears with other people. He saw love in action between a husband and wife in a dimly lit hospital room.

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face post-operative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of a facial nerve -- the one that controls the muscles of her mouth -- has been severed. She will be thus from now on.

The surgeon has followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh. I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had to cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. "What are they?" I ask myself, he and this wry mouth I have made, who gaze at each other and touch each other so generously, so greedily?

The young woman speaks, "Will my mouth always be like this?"I answer her, "Yes, it will. It's because the nerve was cut."

She nods and is silent, but the young husband smiles. He says, "I like it. It's kind of cute."

All at once I know who he is. I understand and lower my gaze. One is not bold in an encounter with a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth. I'm so close I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate hers, to show her that their kiss still works. I remember that the gods appeared in ancient Greece as mortals, and I hold my breath and let the wonder in.

From "Mortal Lessons", by Richard Selzer, M.D.

Transformations

The last several years have gone by at lightning speed.

So many changes. So many transformations. So much growth.

Living with my teenage son has been an emotional roller-coaster ride.

My own life has been an emotional roller-coaster ride.

We've both settled down quite a bit, but I sometimes stop in my tracks and think, "How did I get here?" - Both psychologically and geographically.

If you'd told me 10 years ago that I'd be living in Texas, I'd have said you were nuts. It's not a place I ever thought I'd put down stakes.

I didn't plan on it. I just ended up here, running away from something else.
In fact, all of my life I've been a tumbleweed.

Circumstances change. That's the one true constant.

Right now in my life, everything seems to be going really well. It's almost too good to be true.

I don't place any trust in anything lasting. We are humans, afterall, and as such, will endure challenges all throughout our time on this earth.

It's an adventure. I'm always looking for something new to do or to study, or to try. What will be next?

I don't know that yet, but whatever it is, I'll be stronger than I ever have been before.