When it’s gone, you’ll know what a gift love was. You’ll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it. (Ian McEwan)
Most people, whether they wear glasses or not, believe they see other people with 20-20 vision. I have neither X-ray vision nor psychic powers. But, I can erroneously imagine with little evidence that certain actions have clear causes. For example, a woman in the grocery store rages because the check-out lane isn’t moving fast enough. Obviously, she has an easily lit fuse. And, of course when her son demands candy and gets it, he is spoiled beyond rotten.
However, I don’t know anything about this woman and boy. I can’t document the fact that they are mother and son, not aunt and nephew, or babysitter and child-next-door. Missing facts lead to possibilities when it comes to fiction. I can give the woman a bizarre brain disorder. The boy doesn’t know how to cope and regrets his ornery behavior years later through an unexpected twist in the story line.
In the real world, both speculation and judgment are useless. Even if my original guess is accurate, what does it prove? I’ve limited future possibilities for the woman and child.
I’m reminded of the moment in water aerobics when I was talking with another class member about mundane and comical experiences. My husband joked loudly from the back of the pool. I responded with mock criticism, thinly veiled, since my smile must have reached from ear to ear. “Uh, yeah, he’s mine. We will be married 45 years in July.”
She responded, “My husband died 14 years ago.”
And I realized that I had been caught up in a moment of fun in the water, a few stories we had shared about grandchildren—not kicks through loss and grief.
We continued to talk. I deepened my sharing. We listened to one another. We spoke between jumps up, down, left, and right. We said good-bye on pleasant, perhaps blessed terms. I rode home next to my husband and celebrated human, imperfect, everyday love.
Today, I speak to a young girl, obviously successful. From my point of view. Then, the surprise appears. She has overcome difficulties, yet compares herself to others who have not needed to fight to win. The geniuses. The economically advantaged. I assure her of the beauty I see.
Chances are I have not eradicated all of her uncertainties. Any more than I have erased all of my own. But, I have learned not to assume my vision is 20-20. One more time.
Assumptions about people, groups of people, us versus them, lead to ugliness, disintegration, war. I’d like to eliminate hatred with the right word. The right gesture. It won’t happen. Even if debate and arguments were my forte. That doesn’t mean I can’t affect one person…and then another… and another. I may never know the outcome. I have enough trouble keeping my floors vacuumed. Taking over the job as a god is more than I could fathom. Ever.
Taking over the job as one useful, loving human being in a difficult world, is another matter. One. Only one. That needs to be enough.
terrypetersen 