Can Do Attitude in a Can’t Do Body

One of the things my wife and I like to do together is attend performances at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre. We consider attending plays one of our better date activities because it provides us with an opportunity to break out of our normal routines and have engaging conversations together about the moments in the performances that stirred our emotions or stimulated our minds.

Recently we attended a two-man play called Best Summer Ever that was written and performed by Kevin Kling – an accomplished playwright, storyteller, and contributor to NPR’s All Things Considered. Kling is an ebullient personality and there is something childlike, mischievous, and endearing about him that works to win over his audiences from the start.

One of Kevin’s most admirable qualities is his attitude towards overcoming the physical disabilities that are a part of his life. He was born with a congenital birth defect that shriveled his left arm and left it without a wrist or thumb. Then, at the age of 44, Kevin was in a motorcycle accident that completely paralyzed his right arm and disfigured his face.

Kling is open about his disabilities and tries to explain, with humor, the blessings he has derived from his misfortunes and the benefits that can come from tackling life’s obstacles with faith and a positive attitude. His family and friends stood by him while he recovered from his motorcycle accident and years of rehab.

“It’s hard to deny the power of prayer when you’re on the receiving end of it. I know it helped me heal. At times it was like skiing behind a power boat — all I had to do was hang on… As terrible [as my injuries were] and as scared as I am sometimes, I still feel blessed. And when I get discouraged I just look at my two wiener dogs because they are the best example of a ‘can do’ attitude in a ‘can’t do’ body.

Kevin Kling

Kling separates the disabilities that we are born with from those disabilities we acquire later in life and he points out that being so-called “able-bodied” is always just a temporary condition – sooner or later we are all likely to suffer from life’s frailties. He feels that when you are born with a disability, you grow from it, but when you experience a loss later in life, you have to grow toward it; you need time to grow into the new person you haven’t yet become.

Kevin wrote “The Best Summer Ever” as a way of growing toward the new person he was becoming after his accident. He does this by going back and telling the heartwarming story of his 9 year childhood journey growing up as the son of Norwegian immigrants in rural Minnesota. Exploring his childhood from this perspective became a kind of therapy; helping him to find pieces from his past to fit, not the person he was, but the new person he was becoming.

There were two moments from the play that stood out in my mind as reflections of the kind of positive wisdom Kevin had to share about life with his audience:

We all have a deep desire to feel connected, no matter what age

There is a scene in the play where 9 year old Kevin tries his best to comfort his aging grandfather who is grieving the death of his brother. Kevin is trying to understand why his grandfather is so sad and comes to the realization that his grandfather must feel like an orphan now because his mother, father and all his siblings are now gone. He is the last one of his family left.

How must it feel when the people you had the strongest connection to throughout your life are no longer here? I wonder about my 93 year old mother. After living through the deaths of her mother, father and seven siblings, does she feel like an orphan in some way? Despite her many children and grandchildren, is she happily looking forward to re-establishing connections again with her family on the other side?

Kevin talks fondly about his grandparents and the role they played in his life, saying his relationship with them was one of his strongest connections and one that most shaped who he became:

“I connected with my grandparents. And I think we were in the same light. I mean, I was in the dawn, and they were in the twilight, but we were in the same light. And because of that, they were heading to the creator, and I was coming from the creator. And it seemed, because of that, we spoke a very similar language.“

Live so that your Light outlives you

At the conclusion of the play, Kevin is looking at a nighttime sky full of shining stars and marvels that since the stars are so far away it takes hundreds or thousands of years for their light to reach the earth. This means that those of us left on on earth will continue to receive light from the stars even after they are long dead.

Kevin believes that the light from people can live on after they die too. The good that we do, and the light we share will outlive us if we act to make a positive difference in the lives of the people we love and take meaningful action against the injustice we see in the world.

When Kevin looks up at those stars at night he is happy to feel the presence and memories of his grandparents and parents shining down on him. I hope when you look up at the stars, you too can take comfort and feel gratitude for the connections you had with your loved ones. But more important I hope you are living the kind of life that will continue to shine light long after you are gone. When you think about it, being a light for someone else is one way for us to become immortal.

The Eye is the Jewel of the Body

I have been battling a stubborn eye infection for the past 6 weeks. It started with symptoms of redness, swelling, weeping and tenderness in my left eye. Within two weeks my right eye also became infected – eventually becoming worse than my left eye.

To complicate matters, this infection happened to occur during the peak of the coranavirus pandemic – which made it very challenging to meet with doctors and schedule health care appointments.

I managed to book a remote tele-health appointment with my primary care physician, who guessed that I had some form of bacterial conjunctivitis. He prescribed a 7 day course of both oral and eye drop antibiotics that he believed would clear up the infection.

At the end of my seven day treatment, however, my eye infections were really no better. I scheduled a second tele-health visit with another physician who prescribed a different eye drop treatment that contained a more powerful antibiotic.

As soon as I began the new treatment my eye condition became dramatically worse . My eyes began to water constantly and the eyelids became so inflamed and swollen that I could barely open them. My eyes looked and felt as though they had been through a losing 15 round boxing match.

Panicking a little at this development, I began to put double doses of the eye drops in my eyes, hoping that the extra antibiotics would hasten my recovery from the infection. But this only seemed to make my condition worse.

At this point, my doctor recommended that I visit my nearest Urgent Care facility to have my eyes examined. The doctor there believed that my body was having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic eye drops which was causing my eyelids to swell and my eye ducts to become clogged. I was told to discontinue my current treatment immediately and see an eye specialist.

Fortunately, I was able to get an office appointment with an eye doctor who looked at my eyes under a microscope and swabbed them to determine what type of bacteria was the culprit. Based on the examination, I was prescribed a combined steroid/antibiotic treatment and instructed to regularly massage my eyes with hot compresses to help open up the clogged eye ducts.

It was a relief when my eyes began to slowly improve under the positive effects of this new treatment and I am thankful that my eyes have almost returned back to their normal condition.

The whole experience though has given me a greater appreciation of the role the eyes play in our daily life and how important they are to our overall well-being. As Shakespeare observed in Romeo & Juliet “He that is stricken blind can not forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost“.

Picture Courtesy of Colin Maynard @invent

A number of emotions and concerns took root in my mind while I was battling the course of this malady:

Vanity – According to Henry David Thoreau “The eye is the jewel of the body” and the eyes are indeed the focal point of human relationships – and usually the first thing we notice when we encounter somebody new. It is considered a sign of respect and good manners in our society to look directly into a person’s eyes when you greet them.

So you can imagine that during my ailment I became very self-conscious of my appearance and was reluctant to be seen in public without covering my eyes with sunglasses. My own wife suddenly shrank from my embrace and jokingly began calling me lizard eye.

Because one of the symptoms of the Covid-19 virus happens to be inflamed eyes, the people I encountered seemed to become especially nervous around me. Believe me when I say that once people had a good look at my face they went out of their way to keep socially distant from me.

Fear – As my eye condition continued to deteriorate and stubbornly resisted all forms of treatment despite the use of powerful antibiotics, I began to experience feelings of fear and anxiety over the inability to use my eyes during my everyday routines. I started wondering if there were a real possibility that the illness might cause some kind of permanent damage to my eyesight.

My right eyelid became so swollen that I could only pull it open using my fingers and both eyes watered so much that my vision became very blurry. It became difficult and uncomfortable to do all the everyday ordinary things that requires functioning eyesight (like reading a book, watching a show, working on the computer or tying a fishing knot).

It forced me to consider in the back of my mind how different life would be and how my daily activities would need to change dramatically in order to live with diminished eyesight.

Magnification of other senses – Studies have shown that people who are blind tend to have enhanced abilities in their other senses. Detailed brain scans comparing the brains of people who are blind to the brains of people who are not blind show that individuals with impaired sight have heightened senses of hearing, smell and touch.

I’m not claiming that my other senses increased to superpower levels to compensate for the deterioration of my eyesight – my loss was too short term to re-wire my brain – but what I can say is that my malfunctioning sense of sight caused me to focus more on my other senses and to derive increased pleasure from them.

I closed my eyes and amused myself by listening to music and audio books, I delighted more in the smell of the pleasant scents wafting in the breezy Spring air and in the satisfying mix of flavors in my food, I relished the feel of soaking in the tub and submerging my tender eyes in the warm water.

Now that my eyes are on the mend I must remember that I am failing to appreciate the fullness of life when I let one or more of my senses dominate at the expense of the others.

Simultaneously employing all our senses in concert to their full capacity helps us to live our life in High Definition with Surround Sound quality rather than the limiting Black & White and Mono soundtrack experiences that are provided by the individual senses.

Compassion and Empathy – When we are in the bloom of health, it is human nature for us not to think about the difficulties that other people living with disabilities and impairments must face during the course of their daily life.

My brief encounter with sight impairment gave me a new appreciation for people who must live permanently with one or more disabilities that makes living inconvenient and challenging.

We are told it is a healthy practice to count our blessings and to have a grateful heart. Most people when they count their blessings only think about how grateful they are for the good things in their life. This experience has reminded me that it is equally important for me to be thankful for the afflictions that I have been spared.

When our lives are not burdened by birth defects, diseases, sicknesses, poverty or addictions we find it difficult to show compassion or relate to those who struggle with one or more of these issues every day.

It is good every now and then to put yourself in the shoes of those who are walking a hard road and to remind yourself how you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes – because someday you may be.

As unpleasant as my adventure with this eye infection has been, it has also been a positive learning experience because it has given me a new perspective about the vanity of vanity, forced me to confront and overcome my fears, reminded me to use all my senses to their full capacity and encouraged me to treat with compassion all those who are living with handicaps.

I know that my eyes will eventually fail me as I age, just like the rest of my body will, but I do believe the overall vision I gained from this experience will stay with me until the very end.