Today I spent the day looking at others. I tried to look beneath the surface of their skin and really see them for who they might be. I imagined the invisible burdens that they might be carrying: a child with cancer, crippling depression, the grief from the death of a loved one, maybe the loss of faith or purpose for life. It was all written on their faces yet unspoken. And then there was me.
I wonder what people saw on my face as I walked the halls of Johns Hopkins hospital in Baltimore. While having spent the last month battling blindness in my right eye, I knew that my personal crisis was nothing compared to the despair that I saw and felt on many of the faces around me. Despite having a long road to recovery, I will recover. And that's where I tried to focus today.
Over the last month, I have been reminded that life is stunningly short and that I shouldn't take anything for granted. One moment our family was getting ready to celebrate Christmas and the next I was experiencing debilitating blindness and fear from a massive hemorrhage in my retina that destroyed the vision in my right eye. The subsequent surgery and treatment left me with partial blindness for several days. As depression set in I began to reflect on my ever diffident faith. With each passing day I struggled to understand why God would allow me to suffer in this manner. The darkness reminded me that no one, not even Bill Kirby, is immune from the sometimes invasive collateral damage of living.
For me, being totally dependent on others, including God, over the last month has been a real eye opener (pun intended). Maybe that's why God allowed me to go blind so that I could see Him more clearly. And not just Him but others. Perhaps this whole catechism of sight was to help me gain an appreciation of all that I have been given in this life while allowing me to experience the hidden hurt of those that I've failed to see in the past; to be keenly aware of those who are struggling and grieving; hanging on by the thinnest of threads.
Today I saw people who were heroically pushing back despair, warring with their physical and emotional circumstances, all the while enduring some of the worst horrors of life. They were doing the very best that they could but their faces advertised a pain that was deep inside of them. A month ago, I wouldn't have noticed. I would have been too focused on me and my problems. But today was different. It was as if God had opened my eyes to a world that I had never seen.
You know, I think that we all suffer from blindness at times. For me, this life has always been about the journey we are on. Who knows, maybe life is just a constant journey about trying to open our eyes and see the world through God's eyes. If that's the case then I'm just beginning my journey.
Be well.
Bill
