Finding Profitability

Our Imperfect Bodies

Finding Profitability

The room, in the Health & Physical Education and Recreation Complex, was filled with mostly weight lifting equipment and people.  In those, my university, days it was a place where I and many of my friends spent hours of time socializing and working out.  I didn’t give this regimen much thought until another friend of mine, one who I’d never seen in this building, poked his head into the room.

As soon as his head entered the space our eyes connected, due to our acquaintanceship, and I saw a quizzical and puzzled look cloud his face.  It was enough of a questioning look that it made me wonder.  So, I left my other friends and station to walk over to him and converse.

As soon as we exited the room he addressed his enquiring look, asking why we were in the room working out when everyone in the room already had a “perfect body.”  I can tell you that my body was far from perfect then.  But, these days, with a much older and what my Grandson, Landon Johnson, recently called a “squishy body,” perhaps it was far closer to perfection than I gave it credit for at the time!  And, at that time, I explained to my hallway friend, that everyone in the room had a perfect body because they were choosing to go through a great deal of pain and effort to make and keep it as perfect as possible.  Such was one lesson that each of us has learned, or will learn, over our lifetime.  We all become bigger, stronger, wiser and more courageous as a result of chosen and often unchosen painful experience.  It is the unchosen painful experience that has captured my thoughts and emotions of late.

This weightlifting room story came crashing back into the forefront of my mind this week as I stood in an office-building breezeway with a close friend.  The moment began with joy as I walked into the building.  As soon as I saw him, I immediately felt the pleasure of recognition.  You know what that feels like.  It’s a warmth that starts in the eyes, visually and then nerve endings radiate, centering in the chest, through the rest of one’s body with a sort of joyful, sensational tingling.  It confirms friendship as one of life’s greatest treasures!

My friend and I stood face to face so we could pause our day, just to spend a cherished moment together.  As he opened his mouth to speak, I noticed a small patch of blood dotting his trouser leg.  He explained to me that he had had a bloody nose.  One on this day and one the day before.  And, the reason we hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, at least, was due to an illness.  He was on his way home to give himself much needed personal care. 

I was glad to be seeing him and was sad he was ill.  I know him pretty well and the attending look on his face, accompanied by a decided grief in his eyes, gave me a clear message that there was more he needed to tell me.  I let another moment pass.

During that moment I watched his right-hand lift slowly from his pant pocket.  It trembled as he presented it to me.  It wasn’t a tremor caused by fear.  My eyes were riveted, first to his shaking hand and then to his grieving eyes as he told me he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease!  I stood dumbfounded, deeply troubled, hurting and wondering!  This is the second friend within the last two months to give this same news. Then, I remembered that room.

The room, in the Health & Physical Education and Recreation Complex at the University of Utah, filled with mostly weight lifting equipment and people.  In those, my university, days it was a place where I and many of my friends spent hours of time socializing and working out.  I hadn’t given this memory much thought until another friend of mine, one who hadn’t seen for at least a couple of weeks, stopped to speak with me in the breezeway of an office-building.

As soon as our eyes connected, due to our acquaintanceship, and I saw a sad and troubled look cloud his face.  It was enough of an anxious look that it made me wonder.  So, I paused every other thing so we could talk.

As soon as he gave me the news about his illness, I could hear another voice inside my head asking why would this happen to such a wonderful and dear friend.  Why couldn’t he and the rest of us enjoy a “perfect body.”  And, then I thought of that time when I explained to my hallway friend that everyone in that room had an almost perfect body, because they had chosen to go through a great deal of pain and effort to make and keep it that way.  This is one lesson that each one of us has learned, or will learn over our lifetime. 

We all become bigger, stronger, wiser and more courageous as a result of chosen and unchosen painful experience.  It is a pathway to finding hidden personal growth.  And now, in comparison, recognizing that unchosen experience is by far life’s greatest challenge, I hope to help my friends, their families and myself find otherwise forfeited profitability associated with disease and pain. 

Easily done?

Not a chance!  But, I hope we can find profit together, by holding each other’s hand through it all.