That worth knowing...

A year ago today I didn’t know.

Oh sure, I knew something was wrong with him. He had not been to work in over two weeks, we had been to so many doctors that I had given up months prior, he was dreaming and scheming about things that were neither real nor plausible nor true.

One year ago I knew nothing of what t-cells meant or viral loads or Kaletra or Truvada or Isentress or Seroquel or Risperidone or B6 or Folic Acid or Tricor or Levocarnitine or Lamotrigine or Ativan or Isoniazid or Rifampin or Rifabutin or Marinal or TMP/SMZ or Plant Sterols or the difference between an ID doctor and a GP. I didn't know what AIDS Demetia Complex demented or exactly how AIDS Wasting Syndrome wasted.

I knew nothing about SSI, SSDI, WIC, HICP, PACO, LIHEAP, ACCAP ADAP or any of the other sterile chains of letters used to abbreviate sterile names of sterile programs that suck the marrow from the last vestiges of one's independence.

I didn’t know tricks to make a grown man eat or how to change an adult diaper or how to carry the living dead to their next doctor appointment or how to go nearly a week without so much as a minute of sleep.

I didn’t know the agony of putting my precious dog to sleep or the pain of my father walking out of my life due to a relapse or how the words "six to twelve" would knock me off my feet. I didn't know how heartbreaking it would be to say, yet again, "My name is Jon-Marc and I have one day back" or the anguish that possibly losing a friend would bring or facing death and wishing beyond all else for it to carry me on to the side unknown.

Today I know.

I know that my arrogant and selfish expectations of life are never met and that ‘s ok, that life is hardly fair and never simple and that sometimes it just doesn’t break my way or it breaks me in two or it shatters me completely. I know that a man I once called my husband will never be the same, that his mind has deteriorated and is arrested at a 10 year old child’s development, that he withheld a secret so potent it could have killed me. I know I will never know the answers as to the where and how and with who. And I know that at this point it doesn’t matter.

I know now that slipping beyond the reach does not mean I’ve slipped beyond the grace, that the darkness is temporary, that hope won’t get you far but that a mustard seed of faith will destroy the mountains blocking tomorrow. I know that right at this moment, the present, I am always safe and always right where I need to be.

I know that Jesus calling to Lazarus was not an isolated incident, that I have seen miracles – life altering miracles – right before my eyes, that the lame do walk again and the blind do see again and those left for dead spring forth from their resting place. I know that God dwells in the dirtiest places and keeps company with the dregs and the bums and the ones just like me. I know that he restores the friendship in due time, she quiets the chatter and he rocks gently the ship. I know that she moves just beneath the current and just above the storm and he is just what you need when you don’t know what is you are looking for. I know also that God cannot be reduced to a simple pronoun.

I know I cling with reckless faith to a God that clings to me with reckless compassion, that my problems are only as big as God’s ability to handle them, that holiness is the currency of eternity and that my circumstances do not dictate my happiness in the here and now.
In this season of advent – expectant waiting – I know that waiting is the trickiest part of the game.

And tomorrow I will know what I don’t know at present.

And I know, above all else, that life is worth the living whether or not I ever know again!