Remembering Love

Just two weeks left till our Destination Imagination State competition. The kids finished painting their backdrop today, after our four hour practice. One entire room of my house has been converted to a DI paint studio for the past 7 months. It has had a huge tarp over the floor, covered paint cans, dozens of cups with mixed colors with Saran Wrap rubberbanded tops, and brushes on two tables in the room.The huge backdrop adorns the back wall. In the Sunroom, my once peaceful place, there are piles of cardboard, PVC, material, and two large crates of miscellaneous supplies. My art shelf is cleared of any art materials, and covered with props.

But when the practice ended, the props were done (almost) and the backdrop painted. After they left, I spent two hours cleaning the room, throwing away the paint, rolling up the tarp, scrubbing the paint streaks here and there, vacuuming the accumulation of dirt and dust. We are in the homestretch. One day soon, all this year of work will be but a memory, and my room will be restored as though they had never been there.

While we ate dinner, we watched an old Star Trek movie. One of the characters was the father of a baby I had treated as a brand new Occupational Therapist thirty years ago. His son was an adorable little boy who seizured about 90% of his young life. I watched the movie, and was transported back to the time when the movie star was young, when I knew him. And I remembered that little boy, and how desperately his famous dad loved him. After the movie, I googled the actor's name. The little boy I had worked with all those many years ago had died, not long after I had known him. I wasn't surprised. I did not think he would have lived very long. But it made me sad, thirty years later, remembering how much his parents loved him and hoped he would overcome his devastating medical issues.

I had known the dad was a movie star, an actor. But it hadn't mattered to me. What mattered to me was the depth of his devotion to his wife, and to the little boy who didn't have much of a chance at life. The actor was drop dead handsome, and many of the girls in the Development Center where I worked swooned over him. I didn't really notice his looks, but I did notice his pain. He knew his son would not live long.

Funny...the movie was about Spock, who had died at the end of the Star Trek TV Series, being brought back to life. I wonder if that actor I once knew ever watched that movie while wishing the celluloid miracle could have really happened. The actor did a few other TV spots, and then faded into obscurity. The tarp under his career was rolled up, the tools of his trade put away, and the years laid dust over his achievements.

But as I watched the movie...I remembered. I remembered how the little boy used to break into a wide mouthed smile when his handsome dad kissed his cheek, in between seizures. It was a short life, but it was filled with love, and the appreciation of that still touched me thirty years later.

Psalm 23:6 (NIV)
Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.



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