Such good graces that fall upon us – 

My MN CF provider said today:

“Throughout this last year, we have had only one or two CF patients in house at a time, maybe. The inpatient coordinator has had to find something else to do . . . tasks . . . We have never had this – I mean never in the entire time, history.”

Forty years, really sixty years of science – marked by The Genome Project 1990-2003; lead to where the heck the CF gene was, what are the intricacies, and how to approach and assist the cells along the way. Then those miraculous cell-altering medications. 

“I can’t get my head around it.” 

Unprecedented. 

It’s a nice word in this context. 

Remember Doris and her words, how unacceptable

Remember One Republic

Huge, momentous, chest-rising things to come – stay strong, stay alive – don’t let big foot tear you down. 

I picked-up Helen Keller’s book, The Story of My Life. She is a noteworthy person to take in, as she was the original who broke norms just by being.

She writes:

I remember the morning that I first asked about the meaning of the word, ‘love’. This was before I knew many words. I had found a few early violets in the garden and brought them to my teacher.

She tried to kiss me; but at that time I did not like to have anyone kiss me except my mother. Miss Sullivan put her arm gently around me and spelled in my hand, ‘I love Helen.’

‘What is love?’ I asked.

She drew me closer to her and said, ‘It is here,’ pointing to my heart, whose beats I was conscious of for the first time. Her words puzzled me very much because I did not then understand anything unless I touched it.

I smelled the violets in her hand and asked, half in word, half in signs, a question which meant, ‘Is love the sweetness of flowers?’ 

‘No,’ said my teacher.

Again, I thought. The warm sun was shining on us. 

‘Is this not love?’ I asked, pointing in the direction from which the heat came, ‘Is this not love?’

It seemed to me that there could be nothing more beautiful than the sun, who warmth makes all things grow.

But Miss Sullivan shook her head, and I was greatly puzzled and disappointed. I thought it strange that my teacher could not show me love.

A day or two afterwards, I was stringing beads of different sizes in symmetrical groups – two large beads, three small ones, and so on. I had made many mistakes, and Miss Sullivan had pointed them out again and again with gentle patience.

Finally I noticed a very obvious error in the sequence and for an instant I concentrated my attention on the lesson and tried to think how I should have arranged my beads, Miss Sullivan touched my forehead and spelled the word, ‘Think.’

In a flash I knew that the word was the name of the process that was going on in my head. This was my first conscious perception of an abstract idea. 

For a long time I was still – I was not thinking of the beads in my lap, but trying to find a meaning for ‘love’ in the light of this new idea.

The sun had been under a cloud all day, and there had been brief showers, but suddenly the sun broke forth in all its southern splendour.

Again I asked my teacher, ‘Is this not love?‘

‘Love is something like the clouds that were the sky before the sun came out,’ she replied. Then in simpler words than these, which at that time I could not have understood, she explained: 

‘You cannot touch the clouds, you know; but you feel the rain and know how glad the flowers and the thirsty earth are to have it after a hot day. 

You cannot touch love either; buy you feel the sweetness that pours into everything. Without love you would not be happy or want to play.‘

Much love to you and to you and to you – off to work!