- Yesterday was just a very off day. Actually, most of the week has felt off. Maybe I’m having trouble dealing with the time change.
I’m ignorant of more things than I like to be, and my vocabulary isn’t as rich as I’d like. I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “sublime.” Of course, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t think I ever used it in conversation or a paper. I’ll be honest, I thought the word dealt with something blah or underwhelming, equivalent to “meh.” I think that’s because of this album cover. I heard someone use it yesterday to describe his experience with gratitude and how he went from feeling happiness to joy and ultimately sublime with God. Confused, I looked it up. I wish I had known the meaning of it earlier: Sublime is an adjective that means something is very beautiful or good, and causes strong feelings of admiration or wonder.- Unexpectedly, BoyGeeding came over for a few hours yesterday. I don’t get to be with him as much as I’d like, so I often express things to him that most parents would keep to themselves. For instance, yesterday I wanted to let him know he was awesome. So, I said, “Son, how did you get to be so awesome?” I didn’t expect him to answer, but he replied, “Well, Dad. It’s basically because you’re my dad.”
- Late last year, one of my childhood friend’s mother died. I wasn’t healthy enough to go to the funeral, which was frustrating, but I for sure sent flowers. Within that last year, two of my closest friends’ mothers developed a form of cancer. One responded well to treatment and is in remission. The other’s outcome is not favorable. I hold her in high esteem, stayed in touch with her, and felt she treated me as one of her own many times. That got me thinking about her funeral and how I should be able to make it because I’m now in good health. Not to be macabre, but I try to plan ahead for stuff like this so I can easily take time away from work. But, for some reason I’m not able to attend, I will definitely send flowers. Then an epiphany slapped me across the face. Send her flowers NOW so she can enjoy them when she’s still alive and know that she’s loved. I tell you all this in case you are in a similar situation. No one can feel your love or appreciate a gift after they are dead, so do what you can to let them know you love them today while they are still alive.
- Today’s short goofy dog Rumble video.
- I’ve followed the life of local resident Paul Alexander, one of the last humans to live most of his life in an iron lung, for a long time. But I haven’t been too impressed with the coverage of his death by the national media. Most, like this CNN article, don’t even mention where he spent most of his life. This NBC News article only states he caught polio in the Fifties in Texas. None of them described how an iron lung worked and why his life couldn’t have been made easier with the advancement of medical technology. This 2020 article by The Guardian does the best job of describing his life outside of the contraption and compared what was going on with COVID with polio. The Dallas Morning News did a great video segment on him years ago, but it also lacked coverage of how he spent time outside of the device.
And though he had to think about every breath, he got better at it. Once he could breathe reliably for long enough, he could get out of the lung for short periods of time, first out on the porch, and then into the yard.
Although he still needed to sleep in the iron lung every night – he couldn’t breathe when he was unconscious – Paul didn’t stop at the yard. At 21, he became the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without physically attending a class. He got into Southern Methodist University in Dallas, after repeated rejections by the university administration, then into law school at the University of Texas at Austin. For decades, Paul was a lawyer in Dallas and Fort Worth, representing clients in court in a three-piece suit and a modified wheelchair that held his paralysed body upright.
At a time when disabled people were less often seen in public – the Americans With Disabilities Act, which banned discrimination, wouldn’t be passed until 1990 – Paul was visible. Over the course of his life, he has been on planes and to strip clubs, seen the ocean, prayed inchurch, fallen in love, lived alone and staged a sit-in for disability rights. He is charming, friendly, talkative, quick to anger and quick to make a joke. At 74, he is once again confined to the lung full-time.