We must accept much on faith, and it is often our faith that saves us from the fear of those things we do not see or understand.
Our faith tells us that there is some higher power that controls our destiny but also gives us free will to make decisions that determine our direction. This is a lesson I started learning as a teenager.
When I was 16 years old, I was diagnosed with rheumatic fever, at the time a serious illness which often left patients with severe heart problems that could last the rest of their lives. I had been an active teenager involved in sports and in many school organizations, so I ignored my symptoms until I could barely make it to my bus stop.
On a cold January night my mother called the doctor (they made house calls then), who examined me and advised my parents to get me to the hospital post haste.
I remained in that hospital for over a month. Because my family had no insurance and also no money, I was placed in an eight-patient ward with older women who were very ill. I was frightened by the noises they made at all hours but particularly at night when I tried to sleep.
The women conversed among themselves but hardly acknowledged that I was there. Thus, I was pleased when a girl even younger than I was admitted to the ward. This poor child had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and her skeletal body was badly twisted, causing her excruciating pain. She bore it with little complaint, and she was my first lesson in the relativity of suffering.
My education progressed when I was admitted to the Betty Bacharach Home for Crippled Children in Longport. That became my home for most of a year, my junior year in high school. I was learning that sometimes life takes us on detours we do not intend and do not like. At that point, we can either accept the new plan and deal with it or curse our fate and find that we hurt ourselves in the process.
My first instinct was to ask why God sent me this disease; after all, I tried to do his will and he turned his back on me. In the beginning, I resented the fact that I had to remain in bed while other patients were able to move about and play, see movies in the rec room, and eat all kinds of goodies. My diet was as restricted as my activities. However, I began to realize that these kids, many far younger than I, had not asked for their illnesses, frequently the aftereffects of polio, and they had learned to live with them. In fact , they were doing what other children their ages were doing albeit with many limitations.
I watched boys in wheelchairs play tag and girls in braces push doll carriages up and down the halls. They had different disabilities, but they all had the ability to find joy in the small things they were able to do.
Eventually it occurred to me that this experience of getting to know these children was a privilege. I found myself reading to them, talking to them, and often kissing them goodnight. Some of them came from distant places and rarely had visitors. I became their “big sister.” Occasionally, one of them died during the night, and I grieved.
The time came for me to leave the Betty Bacharach Home, and I was able to return to school on a part-time basis. I missed graduating with my class, and I had to continue taking medicines and eating a restricted diet. This has been my lifelong regimen. But when I look back on that year, I feel blessed that I had been exposed to so many lessons. For one thing, I discovered that destiny and free will are not mutually exclusive and can operate together so long as we are open to the challenge and not averse to taking detours. Sometimes the new road turns out to be far more interesting or satisfying than the one originally planned.
I also learned to be compassionate because we may be the instruments to help others to find that new path.
There have been many other times when I have made plans and they got waylaid, often to my short-term disappointment and my long-term realization that someone else knows far better what is best for me than I know.
At times when I have experienced doubt, and found myself in this deep place of total darkness, I have struggled to find my way back, wondering whether I can relocate the path. It is a lonely place, and I am not happy to be there. Somehow I find a way out, and even though the doubt that led me there is still with me, I feel confident that a force is pushing me onward and upward and will not desert me so long as I continue to seek answers and do not simply settle for the easy and the obvious.
I am not certain that this is faith, but it is what sustains me and makes me do my best to follow that road that is often more winding than straight; it takes me to where I must go even though that is not always where I choose to go.
Faith is like that I suppose.
Ann Dow, a retired college writing instructor, is a resident of West Deptford.
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